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ALUMNI  LIBRARY, 

I    THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY,    | 

*  .    * 

*  PRINCETON,  N.  J. 

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Shelf.    -_..  -       .....|... 


scB 

nosx 


TRAVELS 


OF  AN 


IRISH   GEJTTLEMAX 


IN 


SEARCH   OF  A  RELIGION. 


-£©Q- 


WITH 

$,otes  mrtf  Xllustvatfous, 

BY  THE 

EDITOR  OF   "  CAPTAIN  ROCK'S   MEMOIRS.'5 


t^Itflatolplifa: 

CAREY,  L.EA  &  BLANCHARD. 
1833. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Soliloquy  up  two  pair  of  stairs.— Motives  forembracing  Protestantism. 
— Providential  accident. — Anti-popery  Catechism, — Broadside  of 
Epithets.— Final  resolution Page  13 

CHAPTER  II. 

Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  and  St.  Peter.— Varieties  of  Protestantism.— Re- 
solved to  choose  the  best.— Adieu  to  Popish  abominations       -      16 

CHAPTER  III. 

Begin  with  the  First  Century— Pope  St.  Clement.— St.  Ignatius.— 
Real  Presence.— Heresy  of  the  Docetae. — Tradition.— Relics  of 
Saints 13 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Visions  of  Hermas.— Weekly  Fasting.— Good  Works.— Rector  of  Bal- 
lymudragget.— Rector  no  Faster.— Comparison  between  the  Rector 
and  Hermas 22 

CHAPTER  V. 

Second  Century.— St.  Justin  the  Martyr. — Transubstantiation.— St. 
Irenaeus.— Papal  Supremacy.— Sacrifice  of  the  Mass. — Unwritten 
Tradition.— Old  Man  of  the  Sea •        -25 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Making  the  sign  of  the  Cross.— Tertullian. — Veneration  of  Images. — 
Prayers  for  the  Dead. — Determination  to  find  Protestantism  some- 
where   - 30 

CHAPTER  VII. 

fireat  dearth  of  Protestantism— Try  Third  and  Fourth  Centuries.— St. 
Cyprian.— Origen.— Primacy  of  St.  Peter  and  the  Pope.— St.  Jerome. 
— List  of  Popish  abominations 33 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Invocation  of  the  Virgin.— Gospel  of  the  Infancy,  &c— Louis  XL— 
Bonaventura.— St.  Ambrose,  St.  Basil,  and  Doctor  Doyle  -        -      41 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Prayers  for  the  Dead.— Purgatory.— Penitential  Discipline— Confes- 
sion.— Origen.— St.  Ambrose.— Apostrophe  to  the  Shade  of  Father 
OH  *  * 44 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  X. 

The  Fucharist.— A  glimpse  of  Protestantism.— Type,  Figure,  Sign,  &c. 
— (Jlimpse  lost  again.— St.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem. — St.  Cyprian— St.  Je- 
rom.— St.  Chrysostom.— Tertullian      ....  -      48 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Discipline  of  the  Secret.— Concealment  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Real 
Presence.— St.  Paul. — St.  Clement  of  Alexandria. — Apostolical  Con- 
stitutions.— System  of  secrecy,  when  most  observed         -        •      53 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Doctrine  of  the  Trinity. — St.  Justin. — Irenseus. — Apparent  heterodoxy 
of  the  Fathers  of  the  Thirl  Century. — Accounted  for  by  the  Disci- 
pline of  the  Secret.— Tertullian,  Origen,  Lactantius,  &c.  ♦       -      56 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Doctrine  of  the  Incarnation.— Importance  attached  to  it  by  Christ 
himself.— John  vi.— Ignatius.— Connexion  between  the  Incarnation 
and  the  Real  Presence. — Concealment  of  the  latter  doctrine  by  the 
Fathers.— Proofs  of  this  concealment 63 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Concealment  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Eucharist.— Proofs.— Calumnies 
on  the  Christians. — Protestant  view  of  this  Sacrament — not  that 
taken  by  the  early  Christians 68 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Concealment  of  the  Eucharist— most  strict  in  Third  Century.— St.  Cy- 
prian— his  timidity — favourite  Saint  of  the  Protestants. — Alleged 
proofs  against  Transubstantiation. — Theodoret. — Gelasius. — Belie- 
vers in  the  Catholic  Doctrine  of  the  Eucharist,  Erasmus,  Pascal,  Sir 
Thomas  More,  Fenelon,  Leibnitz,  &c. 72 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Relaxation  of  the  Discipline  of  the  Secret,  on  the  subject  of  the  Trinity. 
— Doctrine  of  the  Real  Presence  still  concealed. — The  Eucharists 
of  the  Heretics.— The  Artoturites,  Hydroparastalos,  &c— St.  Au- 
gustin  a  strict  observer  of  the  Secret.  —Similar  fate  of  Transubstan- 
tiation and  the  Trinity 78 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Fathers  of  the  Fourth  Century.— Proofs  of  their  doctrine  respecting 
the  Eucharist.— Ancient  Liturgies 84 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Visit  to  T d  Street  Chapel. — Antiquity  of  the  observances  of  the 

Mass. — Lights,  Incense,  Holy  Water,  &c— Craw-thumpers. — St.  Au- 
gustin  a  Craw-thumper. — Imitations  of  Paganism  in  the  early 
Church    .  92 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Ruminations.— Unity  of  the  Catholic  Church.— History  of  St.  Peter's 
Chair. — Means  of  preserving  Unity, — Irenseus.— Hilary. — Indefecti- 
bility  of  the  one  Church         ,  97 

CHAPTER  XX. 

A  Dream.— Scene,  a  Catholic  Church— Time,  the  third  Century.— An- 
gel of  Hermas.— High  Mass.— Scene  shifts  to  Ballymudragget.— Rec- 
tor's Sermon.— Amen  Chorus        .       .       .       .       .       .       .101 


VI  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

Search  after  Protestantism  suspended. — Despair  of  finding  it  sreiong 
the  Orthodox.— Resolve  to  try  the  Heretics.— Dead  Sea  of  Learninir- 
— Balance  of  Agreeableness  between  Fathers  and  Heretics        .    106 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

The  Capharnaites  the  first  Protestants.— Discourse  of  our  Saviour  at 
Capernaum— its  true  import.— Confirmatory  of  the  Catholic  doctrine 

of  the  Eucharist 109 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

The  Doceta\  the  earliest  heretics.— Denial  of  the  Real  Presence.— Si- 
mon Magus  and  his  Mistress. — Simon  a  Protestant. — Delight  at  the 
discovery. — The  Ebonites. — The  Elcesaites         ....    114 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Scriptural  learning  of  the  Gnostics— their  theories.— Account  of  the 
system  of  the  Valentinians. — Celestial  Family.— Sophia— her  daugh- 
ter.—Birth  of  the  Demiurge. — Bardesanes 119 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

The  Gnostics,  believers  in  Two  Gods.— The  Creator  and  the  Unknown 
Father.— Their  charges  against  the  Jehovah  of  the  Jews.— Marcion 
— his  Antitheses.— Apelles.— Belief  in  Two  Saviours. — Hatred  of 
the  Jewish  Code.— Ophites. — Marriage  of  Jesus  with  Sophia  Acha- 
moth P23 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

Catalogue  of  Heresies. — The  Marcosians,  Melchisedecians,  Montanists, 
&c. — Why  noticed. — Clemens  Alexandrinus  inclined  to  Gnosticism 
— Tertullian,  a  Montanist.— St.  Augustin,  a  Manichaean  .        .    130 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Discovery,  at  last,  of  Protestantism  among  the  Gnostics. — Simon  Ma- 
gus the  author  of  Calvinism.—  Calvinistic  doctrines  held  by  the  Va- 
lentinians, Basilidians,  Manichaeans,  &c 134 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

Another  search  for  Protestantism  among  the  orthodox  as  unsuccessful 
as  the  former.— Fathers  the  very  reverse  of  Calvinists.— Proofs  of 
St.  Ignatius,  St.  Justin,  &c. — Acknowledged  by  Protestants  them- 
selves     .  138 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Return  to  Heretics.— Find  Protestantism  in  ab\ndance.— Novatians 
Agnoetas,  Donatists,  &c. — Aerius,  the  first  Presbyterian. — Accusa- 
tions of  Idolatry  against  the  Catholics. — Brought  forward  by  the 
Pagans,  as  now  by  the  Protestants.— Conclusion  of  the  Chapter    142 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

Brief  recapitulation. — Secret  out,  at  last.— Love  affair. — Walks  by  the 
river.—1'  Knowing  the  Lord."— Cupid  and  Calvin      .        .        .148 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

Rector  of  Ballymudragget.— New  form  of  shovel.— Tender  scene  in  the 
shrubbery. — Moment  of  bewilderment. — Catholic  Emancipation  Bill 
carried.— Correspondence  with  Miss  *  * 152 


CONTENTS.  Vli 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 

Miss  *  *  's  knowledge  of  the  Fathers. — Translation  of  her  Album  from 
St.  Basil,  St.  Chrysostom,  St.  Gregory,  St.  Jerome.— Tender  love- 
poem  from  St.  Basil 155 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

Difficulties  of  my  present  position. — Lord  Farnham's  Protestants. — 
Ballinasloe  Christians.— Pious  letter  from  Miss  *  *.— Suggests  that  I 
should  go  to  Germany.— Resolution  to  take  her  advice     .        .    161 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

The  Apostolic  antiquity  of  the  Catholic  doctrines  allowed  by  Pro- 
testants themselves.— Proofs: — from  the  writings  of  the  Reformers, 
Luther,  Melancthon,  &c— from  later  Protestants,  Casaubon,  Scaliger, 
&c. — from  Socinus  and  Gibbon     ....*..    J65 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 

French  Calvinists.— The  Fathers  held  in  contempt  by  the  English 
Oalvinists.— Policy  of  the  Church  of  EnglandDi  vines.— Bishop  Jewel. 
—Dr.  Waterland 171 

CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

Pretended  reverence  of  the  English  divines  for  the  Fathers  unmasked. 
— Dr.  Whitby's  attack  on  the  Fathers:  followed  by  Middleton. — 
Early  Christians  proved  by  Middleton  to  have  been  Papists. — Re- 
flections.— Departure  for  Hamburgh 175 

CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

Hamburgh. — Hagedorn. — Klopstock  and  his  wife  Meta. — Miss  Anna 
Maria  a  Schurman,  and  her  lover  Labadie. — Account  of  them  for 
the  Tract  Society. — Forwarded  through  the  hands  of  Miss  *  *    180 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

Blasphemous  doctrine  of  Labadie — held  also  by  Luther,  Beza,  &c. — 
Reflections. — Choice  of  University. — Gottingen  : — Introduced  to 
Professor  Scratchenbach.— Commence  a  course  of  lectures  on  Pro- 
testantism     .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .185 

CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

First  Lecture  of  Professor  Scratchenbach. — Heathen  philosophers. — 
Rationalism  among  the  Heretics. — Marcion,  Arius,  Nestorius,  &c. 
all  Rationalists.— The  Dark  Ages. — Revival  of  Learning.— Luther 

191 

CHAPTER  XL. 

Reflections  on  the  Professor's  Lecture.— Commence  Second  Lecture. — 
Luther.— His  qualifications  for  the  office  of  Reformer        .       .    199 

CHAPTER  XLI. 

Lecture  continued. — Doctrines  of  Luther. — Consubstantiation. — Jus- 
tification by  Faith  alone.— Slavery  of  the  Will.— Ubiquity  of  Christ's 
body OQ3 

CHAPTER  XLII. 

Lecture  continued.— Doctrines  of  Calvin  and  Zwingli  compared  with 
those  of  Luther.— Luther's  intolerance— how  far  entitled  to  be  called 
a  Rationalist.— Summary  of  his  character,  as  a  Reformer       .    210 


Vlii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XLII1. 

Lecture  continued.— the  Reformer  Zwingli— superior  to  all  the  othefs 
— his  doctrine  on  the  Lord's  Supper  and  Baptism — original  author  of 
Rationalism — followed  by  Socinus — Analogy  between  Transubstan- 
tiation  and  the  Trinity       .  .  .  .  .    217 

CHAPTER  XLIV, 

Lecture  continued.— Anti-Trinitarian  doctrines  among  the  Reform- 
ers.— Valentinus  Gentilis. — Socinianism — its  weak  points. — Pro- 
gress of  Anti-Trinitarianism— the  Holy  Spirit,  not  a  Person,  but  an 
Attribute        ........    222 

CHAPTER  XLV. 

Lecture  continued.^-Effects  of  the  rationalizing  mode  of  interpretation 
as  exhibited  in  Germany.— Contrasts  between  past  and  present  state 
of  Protestantism. — Inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  rejected. — Authenti- 
city of  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  questioned,  &c.  &c.    229 

CHAPTER  XLVI. 

Reflections.— Letter  from  Miss  *  *  .—Marriages  of  the  Reformers. — 
CEcolampadius. — Bucer.— Calvin  and  his  Ideletta. — Luther  and  his 
Catherine  de  Bore.—  Their  Marriage  Supper.—  Hypocrisy  of  the  Refor- 
mers.— Challenge  at  the  Black  Bear.— The  War  of  the  Sacrament  239 

CHAPTER  XLVII. 

blasphemies  of  the  Rationalists. — Sources  of  infidelity  in  Germany.— 
Absurdity  of  some  of  the  Lutheran  doctrines.— Impiety  of  those  of 
Calvin.— Contempt  for  the  authority  of  the  Fathers. — Doctor  Dam- 
man.— Decline  of  Calvinism  .....    249 

CHAPTER  XLVIII. 

Rise  of  infidel  opinions  in  Europe,  soon  after  the  Synod  of  Dort.— 
Lord  Herbert,  Hobbes,  Spinoza.— Beginnings  of  Rationalism  among 
Calvinists. — Bekker,  Peyrere,  Meyer. — Lutheran  Church  continued 
free  from  infidelity  much  longer  than  the  Calvinist       .  .    258 

CHAPTER  XLIX. 

Return  to  England.— Inquiry  into  the  history  of  English  Protestant- 
ism.— Its  close  similarity  to  the  history  of  German  Protestantism. — 
Selfishness  and  hypocrisy  of  the  first  Reformers  in  both  countries.— 
Variations  of  creed. — Persecutions  and  burnings. — Recantations  of 
Cranmer,  Latimer,  &c. — Effects  of  the  Reformation  in  demoralizing 
the  people.— Proofs  from  German  and  English  writers  .  .    203 

CHAPTER  L. 

Parallel  between  the  Protestantism  of  Germany  and  of  England  con- 
tinued.— Infidel  writers. — Sceptical  English  Divines — South,  Sher- 
lock, and  Burnett. — Extraordinary  work  of  the  latter. — Socinianism 
of  Hoadly,  Balguy,  Hey,  &c— Closing  stage  of  the  Parallel.— Tes- 
timonies to  the  increasing  irreligion  of  England  .  .    278 

CHAPTER  LI. 

Return  to  Ireland.— Visit  to  Townsend  Street  Chapel.— Uncertainty 
and  unsafety  of  the  Scriptures,  as  a  sole  rule  of  Faith:— Proofs. — 
Authority  of  the  Church.— Faith  or  Reason.— Catholic  or  Deist.— Fi- 
nal resolution  .  289 

Notes 299 


TRAVELS 

OF 

AN  IRISH  GENTLEMAN 

IN 

SEARCH  OF  A  RELIGION. 


CHAPTER  I. 


Soliloquy  up  two  pair  of  stairs.— Motives  for  embracing  Protestantism, 
—Providential  accident. — Anti-popery  Catechism. — Broadside  of 
Epithets. — Final  resolution. 

It  was  on  the  evening  of  the  16th  day  of  ApriIT  1829, — 
the  very  day  on  which  the  memorable  news  reached 
Dublin  of  the  Royal  Assent  having  been  given  to  the 
Catholic  Relief  Bill, — that,  as  I  was  sitting  alone  in  my 
chambers,  up  two  pair  of  stairs,  Trinity  College,  being 
myself  one  of  the  everlasting  "Seven  Millions"  thus 
liberated,  I  started  suddenly,  after  a  few  moments'  reverie, 
from  my  chair,  and  taking  a  stride  across  the  room,  as  if 
to  make  trial  of  a  pair  of  emancipated  legs,  exclaimed, 
"  Thank  God !  I  may  now,  if  I  like,  turn  Protestant." 

The  reader  will  see,  at  once,  in  this  short  speech,  the 
entire  course  of  my  thoughts  at  that  moment  of  exulta- 
tion. I  found  myself  free,  not  only  from  the  penalties 
attached  to  being  a  Catholic,  but  from  the  point  of  ho- 
nour which  had  till  then  debarred  me  from  being  any 
thing  else.  Not  that  I  had,  indeed,  ever  much  paused  to 
consider  in  what  the  faith  I  professed  differed  from  others. 
I  was  as  yet  young, — but  just  entered  into  my  twenty- 
first  year.  The  relations  of  my  creed  with  this  world 
had  been  of  too  stirring  a  nature  to  leave  me  much  thought 


(     14     ) 

to  bestow  on  its  concernments  with  the  next ;  nor  was  I 
yet  so  much  of  the  degenerate  Greek  in  my  tastes  as  to 
sit  discussing  what  was  the  precise  colour  of  the  light  of 
Mount  Thabor  when  that  "  light  of  life,"  liberty  was  it- 
self to  be  struggled  for. 

I  had,  therefore,  little  other  notion  of  Protestants  than 
as  a  set  of  gentlemanlike  heretics,  somewhat  scanty  in 
creed,  but  in  all  things  else  rich  and  prosperous,  and 
governing  Ireland,  according  to  their  will  and  pleasure, 
by  right  of  some  certain  Thirty-nine  Articles,  of  which  I 
had  not  yet  clearly  ascertained  whether  they  were  Ar- 
ticles of  War  or  of  Religion. 

The  Roman  Catholics,  on  the  other  hand,  though  myself 
one  of  them,  I  could  not  help  regarding  as  a  race  of  ob- 
solete and  obstinate  religionists,  robbed  of  every  thing 
but  (what  was,  perhaps,  least  worth  preserving)  their 
Creed,  and  justifying  the  charge  brought  against  them  of 
being  unfit  for  freedom*  by  having  so  long  and  so  unre- 
sistingly submitted  to  be  slaves.  In  short,  I  felt — as 
many  other  high-spirited  young  Papists  must  have  felt 
before  me — that  I  had  been  not  only  enslaved,  but  de- 
graded by  belonging  to  such  a  race;  and  though, had  ad- 
versity still  frowned  on  our  faith,  I  would  have  clung  to 
it  to  the  last,  and  died  fighting  for  Transubstantiation 
and  the  Pope  with  the  best,  I  was  not  sorry  to  be  saved 
the  doubtful  glory  of  such  martyrdom;  and  much  as  I  re- 
joiced at  the  release  of  my  fellow-sufferers  from  thraldom, 
rejoiced  still  more  at  the  prospect  of  my  own  release  from 
them. 

While  such  was  the  state  of  my  feelings  with  respect 
to  the  political  bearings  of  my  creed,  I  saw  no  reason,  on 
regarding  it  in  a  religious  point  of  view,  to  feel  much 
more  satisfied  with  it.  The  dark  pictures  I  had  seen  so 
invariably  drawn,  in  Protestant  pamphlets  and  sermons, 
of  the  religious  tenets  of  Popery,  had  sunk  mortifyingly 
into  my  mind;  and  when  I  heard  eminent,  learned,  and, 
in  the  repute  of  the  world,  estimable  men  representing 
the  faith  which  I  had  had  the  misfortune  to  inherit  as  a 
system  of  damnable  idolatry,  whose  doctrines  had  not 
merely  the  tendency,  but  the  prepense  design,  to  en- 
courage imposture,  perjury,  assassination,  and  all  other 
monstrous  crimes,  I  was  already  prepared,  by  the  opinions 
which  I  had  myself  formed  of  my  brother  Papists,  to  be 
but  too  willing  a  recipient  of  such  accusations  against 


(     15     ) 

them  from  others.  Though,  as  man  and  as  citizen,  I 
rose  indignantly  against  these  charges,  yet  as  Catholic  I 
quailed  inwardly  under  the  fear  that  they  were  but  too 
true. 

In  this  state  of  mind  it  was  that  I  had  long  looked  for- 
ward to  the  great  measure  of  Emancipation,  both  as  the 
closing  of  that  old,  bitter,  and  hereditary  contest  in  which 
the  spiritual  part  of  the  question  had  been  made  subordi- 
nate to  the  temporal,  and,  more  particularly,  as  a  release 
for  myself  from  that  scrupulous  point  of  honour  which 
had  hitherto  kept  me  wedded,  "  for  better,  for  worse/'  to 
Popery. 

The  reader  has  now  been  put  in  full*possession  of  the 
meaning  of  that  abrupt  exclamation  which,  as  I  have  said, 
burst  from  me  on  the  evening  of  the  16th  of  April,  in  my 
room  up  two  pair  of  stairs,  Trinity  College, — "  Thank 
God !  I  may  now,  if  I  like,  turn  Protestant."  No  sooner 
had  this  pithy  sentence  broke  from  my  lips,  than  I  re- 
sumed my  seat  and  plunged  again  into  reverie.  The 
college  clock  was,  I  recollect,  striking  eight,  at  the  time 
this  absorption  of  my  thinking  faculties  commenced,  and 
the  same  orthodox  clock  had  tolled  the  tenth  hour  before 
the  question  shall  I,  or  shall  I  not,  turn  Protestant  7"  was 
in  any  fair  train  for  decision.  Even  then,  it  was  owing 
very  much  to  an  accident,  which  some  good  people  would 
call  providential,  that  Popery  did  not — for  that  evening, 
at  least — maintain  her  ground.  On  the  shelf  of  the  book- 
case near  me  lay  a  few  stray  pamphlets,  towards  which, 
in  the  midst  of  my  meditations,  I,  almost  unconsciously, 
put  forth  my  hand,  and  taking  the  first  that  presented  it- 
self, found  that  I  had  got  hold  of  a  small  tract,  in  the 
form  of  a  Catechism,  against  Popery,  published  near  a 
century  ago,  and  called  "A  Protestant's  Resolution, 
showing  his  Reasons  why  he  will  not  be  a  Papist,  &c. 
&c"  On  opening  the  leaves  of  this  tract,  the  first  sen- 
tences that  met  my  eyes  were  as  follow : — 

"  Q. — What  was  there  in  the  Romish  Religion  that 
occasioned  Protestants  to  separate  themselves  from  it] 

"  A. — In  that  it  was  a  superstitious,  idolatrous,  damn- 
able, bloody,  traitorous,  blind,  blasphemous  religion." 

This  broadside  of  epithets  at  once  settled  the  whole 
matter.  What  gentleman,  indeed,  thought  I,  could  abide 
to  remain  longer  in  a  faith  to  which,  with  any  show  of 
justice,  such  hard  and  indigestible  terms  could  be  applied] 


(     16     ) 

Accordingly,  up  sprung  I,  for  the  second  time,  from  my 
now  uneasy  chair,  and  brandishing  aloft  my  clenched 
hand,  as  if  in  defiance  of  the  Abomination  of  the  Seven 
Hills,  exclaimed,  as  I  again  paced  about  my  chamber, — 
with  something  of  the  ascendency  strut  already  per- 
ceptible,— "  I  will  be  a  Protestant." 


*>*$©»*♦"»- 


CHAPTER  II. 

Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  and  St.  Peter.— Varieties  of  Protestantism.— Re- 
solved to  choose  the  best.— Adieu  to  Popish  abominations. 

I  was  now  pretty  much  in  the  situation  of  Sir  Godfrey 
Kneller,  in  the  strange  dream  attributed  to  him,  when 
having  arrived,  as  he  thought,  at  the  entrance  of  heaven, 
he  found  St.  Peter  there,  in  his  capacity  of  gate-keeper, 
inquiring  the  name  and  the  religion  of  the  different  can- 
didates for  admission  that  presented  themselves,  and,  still 
as  each  gave  his  answer,  directing  them  to  the  seats  al- 
lotted to  their  respective  creeds.  "  And  pray,  sir,"  said 
the  Saint,  addressing  Sir  Godfrey  in  his  turn,  "what 
religion  may  you  be  of!" — "  Why,  truly,  sir,"  said  Sir 
Godfrey,  "  I  am  of  no  religion." — "  Oh,  then,  sir,"  replied 
St.  Peter,  "  you  will  be  so  good  as  to  go  in  and  take  your 
seat  where  you  please." 

In  much  the  same  independent  state  of  creed  did  I  find 
myself  at  this  crisis, — having  before  me  the  whole  varie- 
gated field  of  Protestantism,  with  power  to  choose  on 
what  part  of  its  wide  surface  I  should  settle.  But  though 
thus  free,  and  with  "  a  charter  like  the  wind,  to  blow 
where'er  I  pleased," — my  position  on,  the  whole,  was 
hardly  what  could  be  called  comfortable.  It  was  like 
that  of  a  transmigrating  spirit  in  the  critical  interval  be- 
tween its  leaving  one  body  and  taking  possession  of  an- 
other ;  or  rathe/  like  a  certain  ill-translated  work,  of 
which  some  wit  has  remarked  that  it  had  been  taken 
out  of  one  language  without  being  put  into  any  other. 

Though  as  ignorant,  at  that  time  of  my  life,  on  all 
matters  of  religion,  as  any  young  gentleman  brought  up 


(     17     ) 

at  a  University — even  when  meant  for  holy  orders — 
could  well  be,  I  had,  by  nature,  very  strong  devotional 
feelings,  and  from  childhood  had  knelt  nightly  to  my 
prayers  with  a  degree  of  trust  in  God's  mercy  and  grace 
at  which  a  professor  of  the  Five  Points  would  have  been 
not  a  little  scandalized.  It  was,  therefore,  with  perfect 
conscientiousness  and  sincerity  that  I  now  addressed  my- 
self to  the  task  of  choosing  a  new  religion;  and  having 
made  up  my  mind  that  Protestantism  was  to  be  the 
creed  of  my  choice,  resolved  also  that  it  should  be  Pro- 
testantism of  the  best  and  most  approved  description. 

But  how  was  this  to  be  managed  1  In  a  sermon  which  I 
once  heard  preached  by  a  Fellow  of  our  University,  there 
was  an  observation  put  strongly  by  the  preacher  which  I 
now  called  to  mind  for  my  guidance  in  the  inquiry  I  was 
about  to  institute.  k<  In  like  manner  (said  the  preacher) 
as  streams  are  always  clearest  near  their  source,  so  the 
first  ages  of  Christianity  will  be  found  to  have  been  the 
purest."  Taking  this  obvious  position  for  granted,  the 
deduction  was  of  course  evident  that  to  the  doctrines  and 
practice  of  the  early  ages  of  the  Church  I  must  have  re- 
course to  find  the  true  doctrines  and  practice  of  Protes- 
tantism:— the  changes  which  afterwards  took  place,  as 
well  in  the  tenets  as  the  observances  of  Christians,  having 
been,  as  the  preacher  told  us,  the  cause  of  "  that  corrupt 
system  of  religion  which  has  been  entailed  on  the  world 
under  the  odious  name  of  Popery."  To  ascend,  therefore, 
at  once  to  that  Aurora  of  our  faith,  and  imbue  myself 
thoroughly  with  the  opinions  and  doctrines  of  those  upon 
whom  its  light  first  shone,  was,  I  could  not  doubt,  the  sole 
effectual  mode  of  attaining  the  great  object  I  had  in  view, 
— that  of  making  myself  a  Protestant  according  to  the 
purest  and  most  orthodox  pattern. 

To  the  classical  branch  of  the  course  taught  in  our 
University,  I  had  devoted  a  good  deal  of  attention.  My 
acquaintance,  therefore,  with  Latin  and  Greek,  was  suf- 
ficiently familiar  to  imbolden  me  to  enter  on  the  study  of 
the  Fathers  in  their  own  languages;  while,  besides  the 
access  which  I  was  allowed,  as  graduate,  to  the  library 
of  our  College,  I  had,  also,  through  another  channel,  all 
the  best  editions  of  those  holy  writers  placed  at  my  com- 
mand. Of  the  Scriptures,  my  knowledge  had,  hitherto, 
been  scanty  ;  but  the  plan  I  now  adopted  was,  to  make 

2* 


(     18     ) 

my  study  of  the  sacred  volume  concurrent  with  this  in- 
quiry into  the  writings  of  its  first  expounders;  so  that 
the  text  and  the  comment  might,  by  such  juxta-position, 
shed  light  on  each  other. 

Behold  me,  then,  with  a  zeal,  whose  sincerity,  at  least, 
deserved  some  success,  sitting  down,  dictionary  in  hand, 
to  my  task  of  self  conversion ;  having  secured  one  great 
step  towards  the  adoption  of  a  new  creed  in  the  feeling 
little  short  of  contempt  with  which  I  looked  back  upon 
the  old  one.  Bidding  a  glad,  and,  as  I  trusted,  eternal 
adieu  to  the  long  catalogue  of  Popish  abominations,  to 
wit:  Transubstantiation,  Relics,  Fasting,  Purgatory,  In- 
vocation of  Saints,  &c.,  &c, — I  opened  my  mind,  a  wil- 
ling initiate,  to  those  enlightening  truths,  which  were 
now,  from  a  purer  quarter  of  the  heavens,  to  dawn  upon 
me. 


CHAPTER  III. 


Begin  with  the  First  Century— Pope  St.  Clement.— St.  Ignatius.— 
Ileal  Presence.— Heresy  of  the  Doceta?.— Tradition.— Relics  of 
Saints. 

There  is  among  those  who  consider  the  Catholic 
Church  to  have,  in  the  course  of  time,  fallen  from  its 
first  purity,  a  considerable  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the 
period  at  which  this  apostacy  commenced  ;  some  writers 
having  been  disposed  to  extend  the  golden  period  of  the 
Church  to  as  late  a  period  as  the  seventh  or  eighth  cen- 
tury,* while,  by  others,  her  virgin  era  is  confined  within 

*  One  of  those  who  allow  the  "beaux  jours  de  l'Egliee"  (as  he 
calls  them)  to  have  extended  so  far,  was  the  celebrated  Huguenot  mi- 
nister, Claude,— celebrated,  among  other  things,  for  the  signal  defeat 
which  he  sustained  from  the  learned  authors  of  the  Perpetuity  de  la 
Foi.  Of  this  great  champion  of  Protestantism,  so  lauded  in  his  day, 
it  is  curious  to  see  what  was  the  private  opinion  entertained  by  one 
who  lived  in  his  society,  and  is  known  not  to  have  been  unfriendly  to 
his  sect  or  its  cause  :— M  Cet  homme-la  (says  Longuerue)  etoit  bon  a 
gouverner  chez  Madame  la  Marechale  de  Schomberg,  ou  il  reL'noit 
souverainement ;  mais  il  n'etoit  point  savant.  Parlez-moi,  pour  lo 
savoir,  d'Aubertin,  de  Daille,  de  Blondel." 

According  to  the  Book  of  Homilies,  "the  Christian  Religion  was, 
nnto  thfj  time  of  Constantine  (A.  D.  3524)  most  puie  and  indeed 
golden." 


(    io    ) 

Far  less  liberal  limits.*  My  great  object,  however,  being, 
as  much  as  possible,  "  integras  accedere  fontes,"  I  saw 
that  the  higher  up,  near  the  very  source,  I  began  my  re- 
searches, the  better,  and,  accordingly,  with  the  writings 
of  those  five  holy  men  who  are  distinguished  by  the  title 
of  Apostolical  Fathers,  as  having  all  of  them  conversed 
with  the  Apostles  or  their  disciples,  I  now  commenced 
my  studies. 

Great,  then,  wras  my  surprise, — not  unaccompanied,  I 
own,  by  a  slight  twinge  of  remorse, — when,  in  the  per- 
son of  one  of  these  simple,  apostolical  writers,  I  found 
that  I  had  popped  upon  a  Pope — an  actual  Pope  ! — being 
the  third  Bishop,  after  St.  Peter,  of  that  very  Church  of 
Rome  which  I  was  now  about  to  desert  for  her  modern 
rival.  This  primitive  occupant  of  the  See  of  Rome  was 
St.  Clement,  one  of  those  fellow -labourers  of  St.  Paul, 
whose  "  names  are  written  in  the  Book  of  Life ;"  and  it 
was  by  St.  Peter  himself,  as  Tertullian  tells  us,  that  he 
had  been  ordained  to  be  his  successor.  This  proof  of  the 
antiquity  and  apostolical  source  of  the  Papal  authority 
startled  me  not  a  little.  "  A  Pope  !  and  ordained  by  St. 
Peter  1"  exclaimed  I,  as  I  commenced  reading  the  vo- 
lume :  "  now,  l  by  St.  Peter's  Church,  and  Peter  too,' 
this  much  surpriseth  me."  There  was,  however,  still 
enough  of  the  Papist  lingering  in  my  heart  to  make  me 
turn  over  the  pages  of  Pope  St.  Clement  with  peculiar 
respect ;  and  I  could  not  but  see  that,  even  in  those  sim- 
ple, unpolemic  times,  when  the  actual  exercise  of  autho- 
rity could  be  so  little  called  for,  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
See  of  Peter  was  fully  acknowledged. 

A  schism,  or,  as  St.  Clement  himself  describes  it,  "  a 
foul  and  unholy  sedition,"!  having  broken  out  in  the 
Church  of  Corinth,  an  appeal  was  made  to  the  Church 
of  Rome  for  its  interference  and  advice,  and  the  Epistle 
which  this  Holy  Father  addressed  to  the  Corinthians  in 
answer,  is  confessedly  one  of  the  most  interesting  monu- 
ments of  Ecclesiastical  Literature  that  have  descended 
to  us. 

The  next  of  these  primitive  followers  of  the  Apostles 


*  Priestley,  for  instance,  to  suit  his  purpose,  considers  the  period 
till  the  death  of  Adrian  (A.  D.  138)  as  comprising  the  pure  and  virgin 
a,ge  of  the  Church. 


(     20     ) 

wliose  writings  engaged  my  attention,  was  St.  Ignatius, 
the  immediate  successor  of  the  Apostle  Peter  in  the  See 
of  Antioch.  This  holy  man  was,  by  his  contemporaries, 
called  Theophorus,  or  the  God-borne,  from  a  general  no- 
tion that  he  was  the  child  mentioned  by  Matthew  and 
Mark,  as  having  been  taken  up  by  our  Saviour  in  his 
arms,  and  set  in  the  midst  of  his  disciples.  It  was, 
therefore,  with  a  feeling  of  reverent  curiosity  that  I  ap- 
proached his  volume ;  and,  much  as  I  had  been,  in  my 
ignorance,  astonished,  to  find  a  Pope,  or  Bishop  of  Rome, 
presiding,*  at  such  a  period,  over  the  whole  Christian 
world,  I  was  now  infinitely  more  astounded  and  puzzled 
by  what  met  my  eyes  in  the  pages  of  Ignatius,  a  writer, 
nursed,  as  it  were,  in  the  very  cradle  of  our  faith,  and 
who,  as  one  of  the  first  that  followed  in  the  footsteps  of 
the  Divine  Guide,  was  among  the  last  from  whom  I 
could  have  expected  a  doctrine  so  essentially  Popish, — 
the  invention,  as  I  had  always  been  led  to  suppose,  of  the 
darkest  ages,  and  maintained  in  mockery,  as  well  of  rea- 
son, as  of  the  senses, — the  doctrine,  in  short,  of  a  real, 
corporal  Presence  in  the  Eucharist ! 

In  speaking  of  the  Docetse,  or  Phantasticks,  a  sect  of 
heretics  who  held  that  Christ  was  but,  in  appearance, 
Man, — a  mere  semblance  or  phantasm  of  humani- 
ty,— Ignatius  says,  "They  stay  away  from  the  Eucha- 
rist and  from  prayer,  because  they  will  not  acknow- 
ledge the  Eucharist  to  be  the  flesh  of  our  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ,  that  flesh  which  suffered  for  our  sins."  Now, 
when  it  is  considered  that  the  leading  doctrine  of  the 
Docetae  was,  that  the  body  assumed  by  Christ  was  but 
apparent,  there  cannot  be  a  doubt  that  the  particular 
opinion  of  the  orthodox  to  which  they  opposed  them- 
selves, was  that  which  held  the  presence  of  Christ's 
body  in  the  Eucharist  to  be  real.  It  is  evident  that  a 
figurative  or  unsubstantial  presence,  such  as  Protestants 
maintain,  would  in  no  degree  have  offended  their  anti- 
corporeal  notions ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  indeed,  would 
have  fallen  in  with  that  wholly  spiritual  view  of  Christ's 
nature  which  had  led  these  heretics  to  deny  the  possibi- 
lity of  his  incarnation. 

This  perplexing  and  irresistible  proof,  on  the  very 

*  The  Epistle  of  St.  Ignatius  to  the  Romans,  which  was  written 
in  the  first  century,  is  addressed  "  to  the  Church  that  presides 
(7r£0K&$n<rxj)  in  the  country  of  the  Romans." 


(     21     ) 

threshold  of  my  inquiry,  of  the  existence  of  such  a  be- 
lief among  the  orthodox  of  the  first  century,  threw  me,  I 
own,  into  a  state  of  unspeakable  amazement.  I  looked 
at  the  words  again — rubbed  my  eyes,  and  again  consult- 
ed my  lexicon.  But  I  had  made  no  mistake  ; — there  it 
was,  in  black  and  white,  stark  staring  Popery.  I  had 
found  language  of  a  similar  import,  respecting  the  Eu- 
charist, in  other  passages  of  the  same  Father; — in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Philadelphians,  and  in  that  also  to  the  Ro- 
mans, But  had  there  existed  only  these  notices,  his  pre- 
cise opinion  upon  the  subject  might  have  been  doubtful ; 
and,  as  in  many  other  cases,  where  the  Fathers  have 
happened  to  express  themselves  allegorically  or  obscure- 
ly, would  have  remained  matter  of  controversy.  But, 
taken,  as  I  have  already  said,  with  reference  to  the  Do- 
cetse,  and  representing  the  belief  of  those  heretics,  re- 
specting the  Eucharist,  as  wholly  irreconcilable  with  the 
«reed  of  the  orthodox,*  this  passage  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Smyrnseans,  can  admit  of  but  one  conclusion,  namely, 
that  the  orthodox  Christians  of  that  day  saw  in  the  con- 
secrated bread  and  wine,  not  any  mere  memorial,  repre- 
sentation, type,  or  emblem, — not  any  such  figurative  sub- 
stitute for  the  body  of  our  Lord, — but  his  own  real  sub- 
stance, corporally  present  and  orally  manducated. 

To  find  myself  thus  back  again  in  the  very  depths  of 
Popery,  after  having  so  fondly  fancied  that  I  had  emerged 
from  them  for  ever^  was,  it  must  be  owned,  not  a  little 
trying  to  a  neophyte's  zeal; — nor  had  I  well  recovered 
from  my  surprise  and  perplexity  at  this  sample  of  Popish 
doctrine,  when,  on  turning  to  an  account  of  the  martyr- 
dom of  this  same  Father,  I  fell  upon  a  no  less  glaring 
specimen  of  Popish  practice.  Ignatius,  as  is  well  known 
to  all  readers  of  Martyrology,  was  delivered  up  to  be  de- 


*  "  It  seems  highly  probable,  that  Communicants,  in  St.  Ignatius's 
4ays,  were  obliged  expressly  to  acknowledge  the  Eucharist  to  bo 
Christ's  body  and  blood,  by  answering  '  Amen  '  at  the  delivery  of  the 
Sacramental  body  and  blood,  as  well  as  by  joining  in  prayer  to  God 
that  he  wonld  make  them  so  ;  and,  because  the  Docetae  could  not  do 
this,  therefore  they  absented  themselves  from  the  Christian  Assem- 
blies."— Johnson. 

That  this  express  acknowledgment  of  the  Real  Presence  was  re- 
quired of  communicants,  in  the  first  ages  of  the  Church,  appears  from 
all  the  ancient  Liturgies,  and  we  have  St.  Augustin's  authority  that 
such  was  the  meaning  attached  to  the  "  Amen,"  in  his  times  : — "  Ha- 
bet  magnam  vocem  Christi  sanguis  in  terra  cum,  eo  accepto,  ab  om- 
nibus gentibus  respondetur  Amen."— Contra  Faust, 


(     22     ) 

votired  by  lions  in  the  amphitheatre  at  Rome.  After  the 
victim  had  been  despatched,  the  faithful  deacons  who 
had  accompanied  him  on  his  journey  gathered  up,  as  we 
are  told,  the  few  bones  which  the  wild  beasts  had  spared, 
and  carrying  them  back  to  Antioch,  deposited  them  there 
religiously  in  a  shrine,  round  which  annually,  on  the  day 
of  his  martyrdom,  the  Faithful  assembled,  and,  in  memo- 
ry of  his  self-devotion,  kept  vigil  around  his  relics  ! 

It  should  have  been  mentioned,  also, — to  make  the 
matter  still  worse, — that,  when  on  his  way  through  Asia 
to  the  scene  of  his  sufferings,  this  illustrious  Father,  in 
exhorting  the  Churches  to  be  on  their  guard  against  He- 
resy, impressed  earnestly  upon  them  "  to  holdfast  by  the 
Traditions  of  the  Apostles ;" — thus  sanctioning  that  two- 
fold Rule  of  Faith,  the  Unwritten  as  well  as  the  written 
Word,  which,  by  all  good  Protestants,  is  repudiated  as 
one  of  the  falsest  of  the  false  doctrines  of  Popery  ! 

Marvellous  to  me,  most  marvellous,  were  these  disco- 
veries ; — a  Pope,  Relics  of  Saints,  Apostolical  Traditions, 
and  a  Corporal  Eucharist,  all  in  the  First  Age  of  the 
Church! — who  could  have  thought  itl 


-f 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Visions  of  Hermas.— Weekly  Fasting.— Good  Works.— Rector  of  Bal- 
lymudragget.— Rector  no  Faster.— Comparison  between  the  Rector 
and  Hermas. 

Aig-gR  turning  over  the  two  Epistles  that  remain  of  St. 
Barnabas  and  St.  Polycarp,  and  learning  but  little,  to- 
wards the  object  of  my  search,  from  either,  it  was  with 
some  pleasure  I  opened  the  pages  of  the  pious  and  fanci- 
ful Hermas,  and  among  his  Visions,  which  breathe  all 
the  simplicity  of  an  apostolic  age,  forgot  myself,  for  some 
hours,  as  in  a  fairy  tale.  His  recollections  of  his  early 
love — his  seeing  the  heavens  open,  as  he  knelt  one  day 
praying  in  a  meadow,  and  beholding  the  maid  whom  he  had 
loved  looking  out  of  the  clouds  to  salute  him,  saying, 
**  Good  day,  Hermas  f — his  account  of  the  various  visions 
m  which  "  the  Church  of  God"  had  appeared  to  him ;  now, 

I 


(     23     ) 

in  the  shape  of  an  aged  matron,  reading; — now,  as  a 
young  maiden,  clad  all  in  white,  and  having  a  mitre  on 
her  head,  over  which  the  long  hair  fell  shining; — through 
all  these  innocent  and  (as  they  were  thought  at  the  time) 
inspired  fancies,*  I  wandered  with  the  good  Father,  in  a 
sort  of  drowsy  reverie,  even  as  though  I  were  myself  the 
dreamer  of  his  visions. 

It  was  not  till,  in  the  course  of  my  reading,  I  came  to 
that  part  of  his  work  called  Precepts  and  Similitudes, — 
which  were,  as  he  says,  revealed  to  him  by  his  guardian 
angel,  in  the  shape  of  a  Shepherd, — that  I  was  awakened 
to  a  recollection  of  the  immediate  object  of  my  studies, 
and  awakened,  also,  alas !  to  find  myself  once  more  in 
Popish  company.  This  Father,  be  it  recollected,  was 
one  of  those  distinguished  Christians  to  whom  St.  Paul 
sends  salutations  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  among 
the  moral  precepts  which  in  this  work  he  represents  his 
angel  to  have  communicated  to  him  is  the  following: — 
"  The  first  thing  we  have  to  do  is  to  observe  the  command- 
ment of  God.  If  afterwards  a  man  wishes  to  add  thereunto 
any  good  work,  such  as  fasting,  he  will  receive  the 
greater  recompense." 

Here  again  was  sheer  Popery,  both  in  doctrine  and 
practice— Satisfaction  to  God  by  Good  Works,  and  one 
of  those  Good  Works,  Fasting ! 

To  this  latter  observance,  I  had  from  my  childhood  enter- 
tained a  peculiar  aversion ;  and  it  was*  therefore,  with 
pain,  as  well  as  wonder,  I  now  made  the  discovery  that, 
in  rigour  of  fasting,  the  early  Christians  outwent  even 
our  strictest  Romanists.  The  Fast  preparatory  to  Eas- 
ter Day,  which  was  one  of  total  abstinence,  was  by  some 
pious  persons  continued  for  the  space  of  forty  successive 
hours ;  and  those  who  laugh  at  Papists  now  for  fasting 
twice  a  week  would  have  had  equal  grounds  for  laugh- 
ing at  the  Primitive  Christians,  who,  by  the  Apostolic 
Canons,  were  enjoined  to  a  similar  practice  ; — the  only 
difference  being  that  the  appointed  days  of  fasting,  which 
were  then  Wednesday  and  Friday,  are  now  Friday  and 

*  Origen  quotes  the  Shepherd  as  a  work  divinely  inspired;  and  Ru* 
finus  expressly  styles  it  a  "  Book  of  the  New  Testament." — Expos,  in 
Symb.  Apostol.  Whiston,  too,  with  his  usual  ready  belief  in  all  that 
suits  his  purpose,  considers  the  Shepherd  to  be  a  distinct  inspired 
Book  of  itself,  which  '■  comes  directly  from  our  Saviour  as  the  Apo- 
calypse does." 


(     24     ) 

Saturday.*  Just  before  Easter,  indeed,  these  latter  days- 
were  also  observed,  as  fast-days,  and  for  this  reason,  that 
"in  those  days  the  bridegroom  was  taken  away."f  And 
this  was  the  age  to  which  I  had  been  sent  for  emancipa- 
tion from  Popery ! 

These  ancient  Christians,  too,  contrived  to  make  the 
Good  Work  of  Fasting  subservient  to  another  practice, 
reputed  also  among  Good  Works,  alms-giving ;  the  same 
Apostolic  Canons  informing  us  that  whatever  had  been 
saved  by  abstinence  was  always  laid  out  in  relieving  the 
necessities  of  the  poor.}: 

How  vividly  now,  as  I  sat  leaning  my  elbow  on  the 
pages  of  "  the  Shepherd,"  did  I  call  to  mind  what  my  own 
feelings  had  been,  more  than  once,  at  my  poor  father's 
table,  when  it  has  happened  that  our  rich  neighbour,  the 
Rector  of  Bally mudragget,  has  invited  himself  to  dine 
with  us,  on  a  Friday,  or  other  fast-day;  and  while  his  Re- 
verence has  sat  feasting  on  the  flesh  and  fowl  provided 
purposely  for  his  regale,  I  have  found  myself  forced  to- 
put  up  with  that  sorry  fare  which  "  Hopdance  cried  for 
in  Poor  Tom's  belly — two  white  herrings ;"}  and  still 
more  mortifying,  had  to  bear  the  smile  of  consequential 
pity  with  which  the  Rector  looked  round  on  his  super- 
stitious fellow-diners, — blessing  his  stars,  no  doubt,  that 
the  glorious  Reformation  had  put  all  these  matters  on  so 
much  more  civilized  and  gentlemanlike  a  footing. 

Little  did  I  then,  for  my  consolation,  know  that  I  was 
borne  out  by  the  Apostolic  Canons  in  my  starvation ;  and 
when  I  now  pondered  over  these  things,  and  compared 
my  fat  friend,  the  Rector,  with  the  simple  Hermas,  who 
can  wonder  if  a  slight  doubt  came  over  my  mind,  whe- 

*  The  learned  Bishop  Beveridge,  who  supposes  these  Canons  to  have 
been  framed  by  the  disciples  of  the  Apostles  about  the  end  of  the  se- 
cond century,  considers  the  Fasts  therein  enjoined  to  have  been  of 
apostolic  institution. — CcyJex  Canon.  Ec.  tf-c.  Mosheim,  too,  allows 
that  "  those  who  affirm  that,  in  the  time  of  the  Apostles,  or  soon 
after,  the  fourth  and  sixth  days  of  the  week  were  observed  as  Fasts, 
ere  not,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  destitute  of  specious  arguments  in 
favour  of  their  opinion." 

t  "  But  the  days  will  come  when  the  bridegroom  shall  be  taken  from 
them,  and  then  shall  they  fast."— Matthew,  ix.  15.  St.  Jerom,  who 
pronounces  Lent  to  be  an  apostolic  institution,  attributes  the  eamt 
high  origin  to  the  Saturday's  Fast. 

t  Tnv  Trz^io-o-tixv  rvg  v>iv<7m;  Trmrtv  iviyju^yw. — ^P-   Const. 

§  Shakspeare's  Lear. 


(     25     ) 

ther, — as  far,  at  least,  as  a  world  to  come  is  concerned, 
— it  might  not  be  safer  to  fast  with  the  friend  of  St, 
Paul,  than  to  feast  with  the  Rector  of  Ballymudragget. 


-~»»e  i 


CHAPTER  V. 


Second  Century.— St.  Justin  the  Martyr.— Transubstantiation.— St. 
Irenceus. — Papal  Supremacy. — Sacrifice  of  the  Mass. — Unwritten 
Tradition.— Old  Man  of  the  Sea. 

Thus  far  my  progress  in  Protestantism  had  not  been 
very  rapid.  I  was  determined,  however,  not  to  be  lightly 
turned  aside  from  my  purpose;  so,. taking  leave  of  the 
simple  writers  of  the  apostolic  age,  I  launched  boldly  into 
the  sacred  literature  of  the  Second  Century,  hoping  to 
find,  on  my  way,  somewhat  more  of  the  Thirty-nine  Arti- 
cles, and  somewhat  less  of  Popery.  I  had  but  a  short 
way,  however,  descended  the  stream,  when  I  found  my 
sails  taken  aback  by  the  following  passage  in  St.  Justin 
the  Martyr, — a  man  described  by  an  ancient  bishop  a3 
being  near  to  the  Apostles  both  in  time  and  in  virtue : 
"  Nor  do  we  take  these  gifts  (in  the  Eucharist)  as  com- 
mon bread  and  common  drink;  but  as  Jesus  Christ,  our 
Saviour,  made  man  by  the  word  of  God,  took  flesh  and 
blood  for  our  salvation,  so  in  the  same  manner  we  have 
been  taught  that  the  food  which  has  been  blessed  by 
prayer,  and  by  which  our  blood  and  flesh,  in  the  change, 
are  nourished,  is  the  fiesh  and  blood  of  that  Jesus  incar- 
nate."— Apol.  1. 

The  assertion  of  a  real,  corporal  Presence  by  St.  Igna- 
tius had  more  than  sufficiently  startled  me ;  but  here  was 
a  still  stronger  case,  a  belief  in  the  change  of  the  ele- 
ments, in  actual  Transubstantiation, — and  this  on  the 
part  of  a  Saint  so  illustrious  as  St.  Justin !  Verily,  they 
who  could  send  a  Christian  youth  to  learn  Protestant  doc- 
trine of  teachers  like  these,  must  plead  guilty  to  the 
charge  either  of  grossly  deceiving  him  or  being  ignorant 
themselves. 


(     20     ) 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  Primacy  of  the  Roman 
See  was,  in  the  only  case  that  called  for  an  appeal  to  it, 
acknowledged  in  the  first  age  of  the  Church ;  and  I  now 
found,  in  the  second  age,  the  same  claim  practically  and 
universally  recognised,  both  in  the  acts  of  the  Church 
and  in  the  writings  of  her  chief  pastors.  How  little  could 
I  have  anticipated  such  a  discovery! — the  "Great  Har- 
lot," the  "  Mother  of  the  fornications  and  abominations  of 
the  earth"  (as  so  often  I  had  heard  our  college  preacher 
style  the  Papacy,)  standing,  in  the  pure  morning  of 
Christianity,  supreme  and  unrivalled  ! 

Accustomed,  indeed,  as  I  had  long  been  to  consider  the 
papal  jurisdiction  as  a  usurpation  of  the  dark  ages,  the 
clear  proofs  I  now  saw  of  the  chain  of  succession  by  which 
its  title  is  carried  up  and  fixed  fast  in  that  "  Rock  "  on 
which  the  Church  itself  is  built,  convinced  and  confound- 
ed me;  nor,  though  myself  but  an  "embryon  immature" 
of  Protestantism,  could  I  help  sympathizing  most  heartily 
with  all  that  a  full-fledged  follower  of  that  faith  must 
feel,  on  reading  the  following  strong  attestation  of  the 
Papal  Primacy  in  St.  Irenseus, — a  writer,  be  it  recollected, 
so  near  to  the  apostolical  times  as  to  have  had  for  his  in- 
structor in  Christianity  a  disciple  of  St.  John  the  Evan- 
gelist. 

"  We  can  enumerate  those  bishops  who  were  appointed 
by  the  Apostles  and  their  successors  down  to  ourselves, 
none  of  whom  taught  or  even  knew  the  wild  opinions  of 
these  men  (heretics)  .  .  .  However,  as  it  would  be  te- 
dious to  enumerate  the  whole  list  of  successions,  I  shall 
confine  myself  to  that  of  Rojne,  the  greatest  and  most 
ancient  and  most  illustrious  Church,  founded  by  the 
glorious  x\postles  Peter  and  Paul ;  receiving  from  them 
her  doctrine,  which  was  announced  to  all  men,  and 
which,  through  the  succession  of  her  bishops,  is  come 
down  to  us.  Thus  we  confound  all  those  who,  through 
evil  designs,  or  vain-glory,  or  perverseness,  teach  what 
they  ought  not ;  for,  to  this  Church,  on  account  of  its 
Superior  Headship,  every  other  must  have  recourse,  that 
is,  the  faithful  of  all  countries;  in  which  Church  has  been 
preserved  the  doctrine  delivered  by  the  Apostles." — Adv. 
Hares.  Lib.  3. 

Of  Irenseus  it  must  be,  in  truth,  acknowledged  that, 
though  so  apostolically  educated,  and  graced  by  Photius 


(     27     ) 

With  the  title  of  u  the  Divine  Irenseus,"  *  he  would  have 
made  but  a  faithless  subscriber  to  the  Thirty-nine  Arti- 
cles. For  only  hear  how  this  Saint  speaks  of  the  Sacri- 
fice of  the  Mass,f — that  "blasphemous  fable,"  as  the 
Thirty-First  of  those  Articles  terms  it: — u  Likewise,  he 
declared  the  cup  to  be  his  blood,  and  taught  the  new  Ob- 
lation of  the  New  Testament,  which  oblation  the  Church 
receiving  from  the  Apostles  offers  it  to  God  over  all  the 
earth."  Again: — "  Therefore,  the  offering  of  the  Church 
which  the  Lord  directed  to  be  made  over  all  the  world 
was  deemed  a  pure  sacrifice  before  God  and  received  by 
Him."J 

Consistently  with  his  belief  of  a  Sacrifice  in  the  Eu- 
charist, this  Father  maintained  also,  with  Justin  and  Ig- 
natius, the  Real  Presence  of  Christ's  body  and  blood  in 
that  Sacrament;  pronouncing  it  a  miracle  such  as  could 
not  be  supposed  to  exist,  without  admitting  the  Divinity 
of  Him  who  had  instituted  it.  "  How,"  he  asks,  "  can 
these  heretics  (those  who  denied  that  Christ  was  the  Son 
of  God)  prove  that  the  bread  over  which  the  words  of 
thanksgiving  have  been  pronounced  is  the  body  of  their 
Lord  and  the  cup  his  blood,  while  they  do  not  admit  that 
he  is  the  Son,  that  is,  the  Word  of  the  Creator  of  the 
World!" 

To  the  same  heretics,  who,  from  their  views  of  the 
corruption  of  matter,  could  not  reconcile  to  themselves 
the  doctrine  of  a  resurrection  of  the  body,  he  makes  use 
of  an  argument  founded,  in  like  manner,  on  his  belief  of 
the  reality  of  Christ's  Presence  and  the  transubstantia- 
tion  of  the  elements: — "When  (says  he)  the  mingled 
chalice  and  the  broken  bread  receive  the  word  of  God, 


*  Tot/  §i?7r&rtov  JLi^vniou. 

f  Anciently  called  the  Sacrifice  of  the  New  Testament,  or  Catholic 

Sacrifice  (QvcrtA  kclQoXikh. Chrysos'om    Serm.  de   Cruce  et  Latrone,) 

the  word  Mass  not  having  been  introduced  till  about  the  time  of  St. 
Ambrose. 

%  See  also  Justin.    Dial,  cum  Tryphon. 

"  The  Centuriators  of  Magdeburgh, — whose  zeal  and  acuteness  dis- 
played in  the  Protestant  cause  are  well  known — have  been  con- 
strained reluctantly  to  own  that  the  existence  of  the  Sacrifice  of  the 
New  Law  stands  recorded  in  the  early  monuments  of  Christianity; 
and  on  the  passage  of  St.  [renjeus  here  referred  to,  they  express  their 
acknowledgment  in  terms  of  indignation." — Coombes's  Essence  of  Rb~ 
ligioua  Controversy. 


(     2S     ) 

they  become  the  Eucharist  of  the  body  and  blood  of 
Christ,*  by  which  the  substance  of  our  flesh  is  increased 
and  strengthened.  How  then  can  they  pretend,  that  this 
flesh  is  not  susceptible  of  eternal  life  which  is  nourished 
by  the  body  and  blood  of  the  Lord,  and  is  his  member )" 

On  the  subject  of  Unwritten  Tradition, — that  con- 
tested source  of  so  much  of  the  doctrine,  practice,  and 
power  of  Rome,  this  Father's  testimony  brings  with  it 
double  weight,  inasmuch  as  he  not  only  asserts,  in  all  his 
writings,  the  high  authority  of  Tradition,  but  was  him- 
self one  of  the  earliest  and  brightest  links  in  that  chain  of 
oral  delivery  which  has  descended  to  the  Church  of  Rome 
from  the  apostolic  age.  Referring  to  his  own  master, 
Polycarp,  who  had  been  the  disciple  of  St.  John  the 
Evangelist. t  he  says — "  Polycarp  always  taught  these 
things,  which  he  had  learned  from  the  Apostles,  which  he 
delivered  to  the  Church,  and  which  alone  are  true."  In 
a  fragment  of  another  of  his  writings  there  occurs  a  most 
impressive  and  interesting  passage  to  the  same  effect. — 
Addressing  a  heretic,  named  Florinus,  who  had  adopted 
the  errors  of  the  Yalentinians,  he  says — "  Those  opinions 
the  Presbyters  before  us,  who  also  conversed  with  the 
Apostles,  have  not  delivered  to  you.  For  T  saw  you, 
when  I  was  very  young,  in  the  Lower  Asia  with  Poly- 
carp. ...  I  better  remember  the  affairs  of  that 
time  than  those  which  have  lately  happened;  the  things 
which  we  learn  in  our  childhood  growing  up  with  the 
soul  and  uniting  themselves  to  it.  Insomuch  that  I  can 
tell  the  place  in  which  the  Blessed  Polycarp  sat  and 
taught,  and  his  going  out  and  coming  in;  and  the 
manner  of  his  life  and  the  form  of  his  person ;  and  the 
discourses  he  made  to  the  people,  and  how  he  related  his 
conversation  with  St.  John,  and  others  who  had  seen  the 


*  There  is  yet  a  stronger  passage  to  this  purpose  in  one  of  those 
Fragments  attributed  to  Ireneeus,  which  were  published  in  1715  by 
Dr.  PfarF.  from  manuscripts  in  the  Kin?  of  Sardinia's  library:— wh-re, 
in  describing  the  ceiernonies  of  the  Sacrifice,  it  is  said  that  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  invoked  that  he  may  make  the  bread  the  body  of  Christ  and 
the  cup  the  blood  of  Christ.  Much  doubt,  however,  has  been  thrown 
upon  the  genuineness  of  these  Fragments,  both  by  MafTei,  who  ob- 
jected to  them  on  their  first  appearance,  and  by  the  remarks  of  the 
ever  judicious  Lardner  afterwards. 

t  By  many  also  supposed  to  have  been  the  Angel  of  the  Church  of 
Smyrna,  to  whom  the  Epistle  in  the  second  chapter  of  the  Book  of 
Revelation  was  directed  to  be  sent. 


(      20      ) 

Lord ;  and  how  he  related  their  sayings,  and  what  he  had 
heard  from  them  concerning  the  Lord ;  hoth  concerning 
his  miracles  and  his  doctrine,  as  he  had  received  them 
from  the  eye-witnesses  of  the  Word  of  Life :  all  which 
Polycarp  related  agreeably  to  the  Scriptures.  These 
things  I  then,  through  the  mercy  of  God  toward  me,  di- 
ligently heard  and  attended  to,  recording  them  not  on 
paper,  but  upon  my  heart;  and,  through  the  grace  of 
God,  I  continually  renew  my  remembrance  of  them." 

Could  we  now  summon  to  earth  the  shade  of  this  holy 
Father, — this  Saint,  so  "  nourished  up  in  the  words  of 
faith  and  of  good  doctrine," — with  what  face  can  we  ima- 
gine a  Protestant,  an  upstart  of  the  Reformation,  to  stand 
forth,  in  contradiction  to  so  orthodox  a  spirit,  and  pro- 
nounce the  Unwritten  Word  of  the  Catholic  Church  to 
•be  but  an  inheritance  of  imposture,  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
See  of  St.  Peter  a  rank  usurpation,  and  a  sacrifice  of  the 
Holy  Mass  "a  blasphemous  fable]" 

If  any  thing  more  were  wanting  to  show  the  deep 
sense  which  this  Father  entertained  of  the  reverence  duo 
to  tke  authority  and  traditions  of  the  Church,  we  should 
find  it  in  the  few  following  passages  from  his  writings: — 
"  In  explaining  the  Scriptures,  Christians  are  to  attend 
to  the  Pastors  of  the  Church,  who,  by  the  ordinance  of 
God,  have  received  the  inheritance  of  truth,  with  the 
succession  of  their  Sees."  "  The  tongues  of  nations 
vary,  but  the  virtue  of  tradition  is  one  and  the  same 
every  where ;  nor  do  the  churches  in  Germany  believe  or 
teach  differently  from  those  in  Spain,  Gaul,  the  East, 
Egypt  or  Lybia."  "  Supposing  the  Apostles  had  not 
left  us  the  Scriptures,  ought  we  not  still  to  have  followed 
the  ordinance  of  Tradition,  which  they  consigned  to 
those  to  whom  they  committed  the  Churches?  It  is  this 
ordinance  of  Tradition  which  many  nations  of  barbari- 
ans, believing  in  Christ,  follow  without  the  use  of  letters 
or  inky — Adv.  Hser.  Lib.  4. 

It  wTill  easily  be  believed  that,  at  the  close  of  this  long 
day's  studies,  I  felt  utterly  disheartened  and  wearied 
with  my  pursuit.  I  had  now  found  sanctioned  by  the 
authority  of  the  Church's  earliest  champions, — some  of 
them  men  who  "  had  the  preaching  of  the  Apostles  still 
sounding  in  their  ears," — six  no  less  Popish  points  of 
faith  and  observance  than— 1.  The  acknowledgment  of  a 

3* 


(     30     ) 

Sovereign  Pontiff;  *  2.  A  Reverence  due  to  Relics ; 
3.  Satisfaction  to  God  by  fasting,  alms-deeds,  &c. ;  4. 
The  authority  of  Tradition ;  5.  A  Corporeal  Presence  in 
the  Eucharist;  and  6.  The  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass.  Who 
can  wonder  if,  after  all  this,  I  despaired  of  ridding  my- 
self of  Popery]  Heaving  a  heavy  sigh,  as  I  closed  my 
ponderous  folios,  and  with  a  sort  of  oppressed  sensation 
as  if  the  Pope  were  himself  bodily  on  my  back,  I  went  to 
bed  feeling  much  as  Sinbad  the  sailor  would  have  done, 
if,  after  having  shaken  off,  as  he  thought,  the  troublesome 
little  old  Man  of  the  Sea,  he  felt  the  legs  of  the  creature 
again  fastening  round  his  neck. 


— "»•»►>$  ©  ©<<««•— 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Making  the  sign  of  the  Cross.— Tertullian.— Veneration  of  [mages.— 
Prayers  for  the  Dead. — Determination  to  find  Protestantism  some- 
where. 

On  the  following  morning  I  rose, — thanks  to  the  re- 
cruiting power  of  sleep, — somewhat  recovered  from  the 
rebuffs  of  the  few  preceding  days,  and  feeling,  on  the 
whole,  as  well  and  Protestant  as  could  be  expected.  At 
least,  my  horror  of  returning  to  Popery  was  as  strong  as 
ever ;  though  my  chances  of  becoming  a  good  Protestant, 
— or,  indeed,  finding  out  what  a  good  Protestant  was, — 
had  become  all  but  desperate.  I  was,  therefore,  pretty 
much  in  the  "  unhoused  condition"  of  that  sect  of  here- 
tics, called  Basilidians,  who  described  themselves  as  being 
no  longer  Jews,  but  still  not  yet  Christians. 

Of  the  disagreeable,  but  apostolic,  practice  of  weekly 
fasting  I  have  already  spoken ;  but  there  was  another 
Popish  custom,  against  which,  as  a  badge  of  anile  super- 
stition, I  still  more  indignantly  rebelled ; — and  this  was 
the  practice  of  making  the  sign  of  the  Cross  on  the  fore- 
head, after  grace,  at  meals.  The  feeling  of  shame  with 
which,  in  my  youth,  I  used  to  perform  this  overt  act  of  Po- 

*  We  find  this  very  title  of  "  Sovereign  Pontiff"  given  to  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  by  no  less  high  and  ancient  an.  authority  than  Ter- 
tullian, 


(     31     ) 

pery,  in  the  presence  of  Protestants,  I  shall  never  forget.  * 
Nor  do  I  appear  to  have  been,  in  this  feeling-,  at  all  sin- 
gular among'  my  fellow  Catholics,  as  I  have  observed 
that,  ever  since  the  two  Religions  have  come  to  be  on 
dining  terms  with  each  other,  the  practice  has  been  al- 
most wholly  discontinued ;  insomuch  that  he  must  be  a 
primitive  Catholic,  indeed,  who,  in  the  present  times, 
would  venture  to  bless  himself  (as  the  operation  is  called) 
in  good  company. 

"  This,  at  least,"  said  I  to  myself,  pettishly,  as  I  open- 
ed a  huge  volume  of  Tertullian, — "this  monk's  trick,  at 
least,  can  assuredly  never  have  received  any  sanction 
from  the  orthodox  Christians  of  the  early  Church."  The 
words  had  scarcely  passed  my  lips,  when,  on  turning  to 
this  Father's  account  of  the  modes  and  customs  of  his 
fellow  Christians,  I  read,  to  my  astoundment,  as  follows: 
— "We  siom  ourselves  with  the  sign  of  the  cross  in  the 
forehead,  whenever  we  go  from  home  or  return,  when  we 
put  on  our  clothes  or  our  shoes,  when  we  go  to  the  bath, 
or  sit  down  to  meat,  when  we  light  our  candles,  when 
we  lie  down  and  when  we  sit."  Here  was  crossing 
enough,  God  knows, — crossing  enough,  in  a  single  day  of 
Tertullian's,  to  serve  the  most  particular  old  Catholic 
lady  in  all  Ireland  for  a  week. 

There  now  remained  little  else  to  fill  up  the  measure 
of  what  are  called  Popish  superstitions  but  Veneration  of 
Images  and  Prayers  for  the  Dead ;  and  to  both  these  I 
found  the  same  eminent  Father  lending  his  sanction.  In 
speaking  of  the  wife  who  survivesher  husband,  he  desires 
that  she  should  "pray  for  her  husband's  soul,  solicit  for 
him  refreshment,  and  offer  on  the  anniversaries  of  his 
death."  In  another  place,  too,  we  find  him  tracing  this 
practice  to  apostolical  traditions,  not  enforced,  as  he  says, 
by  the  positive  words  of  Scripture,  but  delivered  down 
from  his  predecessors; — thus  not  only  upholding  the  pa- 
pistical usage  of  praying  for  the  Dead,  but  deriving  his 
authority  for  it  through  that  equally  papistical  channel, 
Tradition ! 


*  It  appears  from  occasional  rebukes,  in  the  Fathers,  on  this  sub- 
ject, that  a  similar  shame  of  being  seen  to  make  the  sign  of  the  cross 
was  not  unknown  even  among  ancient  Catholics. — "  Let  us  not  be 
ashamed  ("says  St.  Cyril)  to  confess  Him  who  was  crucified ;  let  the 
vQgxyis  (the  si2n  of  the  cross)  be.  confidently  made  upon  the  fore- 
head with  the  finger," 


(     32     ) 

With  respect  to  Images,  the  use  of  which,  as  memo- 
rials, was  derived  also  by  the  early  Christians  from  tradi- 
tion, a  passing  sentence  of  Tertullian,  in  which  he  men- 
tions as  though  it  were  of  common  occurrence,  the  pic- 
tures of  Christ  upon  the  communion-cups,*  is  a  suffi- 
cient proof  that  the  use  of  images  had  been,  at  the  time 
he  wrote,  long  prevalent.  There  appears  little  doubt, 
indeed,  that  Reformed  eyes  would  have  been  shocked  by 
such  "idolatrous"  representations,  not  only  in  the  second 
century  of  Christianity,  but  most  probably  from  its  very 
earliest  periods,  f  From  the  same  fondness  for  religious 
memorials,  we  find  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria,  in  the 
same  century,  recommending  to  Christians  to  wear  the 
figure  of  a  fish  engraved  on  their  rings, — the  fish  being  a 
symbol  of  the  name  of  Christ.}: 

I  had  now,  in  addition  to  the  six  "plague  spots  of  Po- 
pery," which  I  had  already,  in  this  her  virgin  period, 
counted  on  the  fair  face  of  the  Church,  to  number  also 
the  three  following, — viz.  7,  Prayers  for  the  Dead. — 8. 
Veneration  of  Images.  And  9.  Crossing,  without  end! 
Assuredly,  any  one  less  determined  than  myself  to  find 
Protestantism  somewhere,  would  have  given  up  the  chase 
in  despair.  But  I  was  still  resolved  to  persevere.  I  had 
bid  too  solemn  a  farewell  to  Popery  to  allow  of  my  re- 
voking the  step  now  with  a  good  grace.  Besides,  it  is 
but  fair  to  confess, — what  I  ought  perhaps  to  have  con- 
fessed somewhat  sooner, — that,  in  addition  to  a  very  con- 
scientious desire  of  exchanging  my  religion  for  a  better,  I 
had  also  some  motives  of  a  more  mundane,  and,  I  may  add, 
tender  nature,  which  had  considerable  weight  in  deter- 
mining me  to  become  a  Protestant  as  soon  as  possible ; — 
motives  which,  though  of  that  class  usually  styled  pri- 
vate and  delicate,  I  shall,  in  some  future  chapter,  venture 
to  communicate  to  the  reader. 

*  In  a  curious  work  on  the  Eucharistic  Cups  of  the  ancient  Chris- 
tians (by  Doughty),  the  author  has  collected,  with  much  industry,  an 
account  of  the" different  materials  of  which  these  vessels  were  formed, 
from  wood  up  to  crystal,  onyx,  &c.  and  among  the  images  upon  them 
be  particularly  specifies  that  of  the  Crucified  Saviour,  and  the  good 
Shepherd  carrying  the  lamb  on  his  shoulders. 

t  In  the  year  814,  when  Leo,  the  Armenian,  assembled  several  bish- 
ops in  order'to  induce  them  to  break  images,  Euthymius,  metropolitan 
of  Sardis,  thus  addressed  him:— "Know,  sire,  that  for  800  years,  and 
more  since  Christ  came  into  the  world,  he  has  been  painted  and  adored 
in  his  image.  Who  will  be  bold  enough  to  abolish  so  ancient  a  tra- 
dition ?" 
t  Clem.  Alexand,  Opera  cura  Potteri,  p.  286. 


'■> 


(     33     ) 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Great  dearth  of  Protestantism.— Try  Third  and  Fourth  Centuries.— St. 
Cyprian.— Origen.— Primacy  of  St.  Peter  and  the  Pope.— St.  Jerome. 
—List  of  Popiih  abominations. 

Though  1  had  now  pretty  well  convinced  myself  that 
if,  as  Protestants  assure  us,  the  pure  original  of  their  Creed 
is  to  be  found  in  the  first  ages,  it  must  be  found  there  in 
some  such  modest  and  unobtrusive  shape  as  that  of  a  cer- 
tain tragic  author's  "moon  behind  a  cloud,"  I  did  not,  even 
yet,  allow  myself  to  despair  of  catching,  at  least,  a 
glimpse  of  this  retired  luminary.  I  therefore  continued 
my  inquest;  and,  summoning  the  Fathers  of  the  two  fol- 
lowing centuries  before  me,  resolved  to  try  whether,  by 
dint  of  close  cross-questioning,  I  should  be  able  to  detect 
a  single  Protestant  among  them.  But  no:  the  answer  of 
all  was  the  same, — they  belonged  to  the  one  Catholic 
Church;  to  that  Church,  says  St.  Cyprian,  "which,  im- 
brued with  the  light  of  the  Lord,  sends  forth  her  rays 
over  the  whole  earth."  When  asked  to  name  the  cen- 
tre from  which  this  Catholic  light  radiates,  the  same 
Saint  points  to  Rome,  to  the  chair  of  Peter,  and  "  the 
principal  Church  (as  he  says  emphatically)  whence  the 
Sacerdotal  Unity  took  its  rise." — Ep.  55. 

Thus  foiled,  I  flew  to  Origen,  with  somewhat,  perhaps, 
of  a  hope  that,  being  but  a  questionable  Saint,  he  might 
prove  a  good  Protestant.  But  my  success  was  no  better ; 
I  found  him  as  eager  for  the  Primacy  of  St.  Peter  and 
the  Pope  as  his  brethren,  and,  on  the  subject  of  exclu- 
sive salvation,  as  Catholic  as  need  be :  "  Let  no  one,"  he 
says,  "persuade,  let  no  one  deceive  himself;  out  of  this 
house,  that  is,  out  of  the  Church,  there  is  no  salvation." 
— Horn.  3.  in  Josue.  By  St.  Jerome  this  monopoly  of 
heaven  was,  I  saw,  asserted  with  no  less  vigour: — I 
know  that  the  Church  is  founded  upon  Peter,  that  is, 
on  a  Rock.  Whoever  eateth  the  Lamb  out  of  that  house, 
is  a  profane  man.  Whoever  is  not  in  the  Ark  shall  pe- 
rish by  the  flood." — Ep.  14.  ad  Dam.  To  a  wight,  like 
me,  just  tottering  upon  the  edge  of  said  Ark, — if  not  al- 
ready off, — this  metaphoric  hint  was  comfortable ! 


(     34     ) 

On  all  those  Popish  points  of  belief  and  practice  which, 
as  I  have  shown,  were  sanctioned  by  the  Fathers  of  the 
two  First  Centuries,  I  found  the  doctrine  of  those  of  the 
Third  and  Fourth  precisely  the  same ;  only  put  forth 
more  copiously  in  detail,  and  enforced  by  richer  stores  of 
ingenuity  and  learning.  To  bring  forward,  indeed,  all 
the  testimonies  that  might,  but  too  triumphantly,  be  cited 
to  prove  that,  in  those  times,  Christianity  and  Popery 
were  convertible  terms,  would  be  to  transcribe  the 
greater  part  of  the  writings  of  the  four  first  ages,  from 
the  simple  Hermas  down  to  the  learned  and  rhetorical 
St.  Chrysostom.  I  shall  therefore  content  myself  with 
adding  to  what  I  have  already  said  of  the  Primitive  times, 
a  few  specimens  of  the  doctrine  held  by  the  leading 
Fathers  of  the  third  and  fourth  centuries,  on  some  of  the 
principal  points  at  issue  between  the  Church  of  Rome 
and  her  opponents. 


AUTHORITY  OP  THE  CHURCH. — TRADITION. 

Tertullian* — "  To  know  what  the  Apostles  taught, 
that  is,  what  Christ  revealed  to  them,  recourse  must  be 
had  to  the  Churches  which  they  founded,  and  which  they 
instructed  by  word  of  mouth  and  by  their  Epistles." — De 
Prce  scrip,  c.  21. 

"  Of  these  (certain  practices  in  the  administration  of 
Baptism)  and  other  usages,  if  you  ask  for  the  written 
authority  of  the  Scriptures,  none  will  be  found.  They 
spring  from  Tradition,  ivhich  practice  has  confirmed  and 
obedience  ratified." — De  Corona  Militis,  c.  3,  4.  "  To  the 

Scriptures,  therefore,  an  appeal  must  not  be  made 

the  question  is,  to  whom  was  that  doctrine  committed 
by  which  we  are  made  Christians?  for  where  this  doctrine 
and  this  faith  shall  be  found,  there  will  be  the  truth  of 
the  Scriptures  and  their  expositions,  and  of  all  Chris- 
tian Traditions." — De  Prcescrip.  c.  19. 

Orige?i.—u  As  there  are  many  who  think  they  be- 
lieve what  Christ  taught,  and  some  of  these  differ  from 
others,  it  becomes  necessary  that  all  should  profess  that 
doctrine  which  came  down  from  the  Apostles,  and  now 

*  This  Father,  having  embraced  Christianity  about  the  year  1?5, 
and  died  in  216.  ie  usually  claimed  as  belonging  alike'to  both  Cen- 
turies. 


(    a*   ) 

continues  in  the  Church.  That  alone  is  truth  which  in 
nothing  differs  from  ecclesiastical  and  apostolical  tra- 
dition."— Prgef.  lib.  1.  de  Princip.  "  As  often  as  the  he- 
retics produce  the  Canonical  Scriptures,  in  which  every 
Christian  agrees  and  believes,  they  seem  to  say,  Lo! 
with  us  is  the  word  of  truth.  But  to  them  (the  heretics) 
we  cannot  give  credit,  nor  depart  from  the  first  and  ec- 
clesiastical tradition.  We  can  believe  only  as  the  suc- 
ceeding Churches  of  God  have  delivered." — Tract.  29 
in  Mat. 

Lactantius. — "  The  Catholic  Church  alone  retains  the 
true  worship.  This  is  the  source  of  truth,  tliis  is  the 
dwelling  of  faith."— Jaw*.  I.  4.  c.  30. 

Cyprian. — "  It  is  easy  to  minds  that  are  religious  and 
simple  to  lay  aside  error,  and  to  discover  truth :  for  if  we 
turn  to  the  source  of  Divine  Tradition,  error  ceases."* — 
Ep.  63. 

Eusebius. — "  Which  truths,  though  they  be  consigned 
to  the  Sacred  Writings,  are  still,  in  a  fuller  manner, 
confirmed  by  the  Traditions  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
which  Church  is  diffused  over  all  the  earth.  This  un- 
written Tradition  confirms  and  seals  the  testimonies  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures." — Dem.  Evang.  lib.  1. 

Basil. — "  Among  the  dog-mas  of  the  Church  there  are 
some  contained  in  the  Scriptures  and  some  come  from 
Tradition ;  but  both  have  an  equal  efficacy  in  the  promo- 
tion of  piety." — De  Spirit.  Sanct.  c.  27.  "  In  my  opi- 
nion, it  is  apostolical  to  adhere  to  unwritten  Traditions." 
— Ibid  c.  29.  "  It  is  the  common  aim  of  all  the  enemies 
of  sound  doctrine,  to  shake  the  solidity  of  our  faith  in 
Christ  by  annulling  apostolical  Tradition  ....  they  dis- 
miss the  unwritten  testimony  of  the  Fathers  as  a  thing 
of  no  value." — lb.  c.  10. 

Epiphanius. — "  We  must  look  also  to  Tradition ;  for 
all  things  cannot  be  learned  from  the  Scriptures." 

Chrysostom. — "  Hence  it  is  manifest  that  they  (the 
Apostles)  did  not  deliver  all  things  by  means  of  Epistles, 
but   that    they    made    many   communications    without 


*  On  this  passage  St.  Augustin  remarks :— The  advice  which  St. 
Cyprian  gives  to  recur  to  the  Tradition  of  the  Apostles,  and  thenre  to 
bring  down  the  series  to  our  own  times,  is  excellent,  and  manifestly  to 
be  followed."— De  Bapt.  contra  Donatist.  I.  5.  «.  26. 


(      3G     ) 

writing;  and  that  both  are  equally  entitled  to  credence. 
It  is  a  tradition,  ask  no  farther." — Horn.  4.  in  2  Thess.* 


PRIMACY  OF  THE  SUCCESSORS  OF  ST.  PETER. 

Some  of  the  strong*  testimonies,  on  this  point,  of  St. 
Irenseus,  St.  Cyprian,  &c  have  already  been  laid  before 
the  reader. 

Cyprian. — Nevertheless  that  he  (Christ)  might  clearly 
establish  unity,  he  formed  one  See,  and  by  his  authority 
fixed  the  origin  of  this  same  unity  by  beginning  from 
one.  The  other  apostles  were  accordingly,  like  Peter, 
invested  with  an  equal  participation  of  honour  and  power; 
but  the  beginning  is  built  on  unity.  The  Primacy  is 
given  to  Peter,  that  there  might  be  exhibited  one  Church 
of  Christ  and  one  See." — De  Unitat.  Eccles. 

Jerom. — (In  a  letter  to  Pope  Damasus.)  "  I  am  follow- 
ing no  other  than  Christ,  united  to  the  communion  of 
your  Holiness,  that  is,  to  the  Chair  of  Peter.  I  knew 
that  the  Church  is  founded  upon  that  Rock." — Ep.  14. 
ad  Damasum.  "  I  cease  not  to  proclaim,  He  is  mine  who 
remains  united  to  the  Chair  of  Peter." 

Chrysostom. — "  For  what  reason  did  Christ  shed  his 
blood  I  Certainly,  to  gain  those  sheep  the  care  of  which 
he  committed  to  Peter  and  his  successors." 


SATISFACTION  TO  GOD  BY  PENITENTIAL  WORKS. 

Cyprian. — "  The  Lord  must  be  invoked ;  must  be  ap- 
peased by  our  satisfaction." — De  Lapsis.  Before  Him 
let  the  soul  bow  down :  to  Him  let  our  sorrow  make 
satisfaction :  ....  By  fasting,  by  tears,  and  by  moaning, 
let  us  appease,  as  he  himself  admonishes,  his  indignation.1' 
lb.  "  Purge  away  your  sins  by  works  of  justice,  and 
by  alms-deeds  which  may  save  the  soul.  God  can  pardon : 
he  can  turn  away  his  judgment.  He  can  pardon  the 
penitent  who  implores  forgiveness;  he  can  accept  for  him 
the  supplications  of  others ;  or  should  he  move  him  more 
by  his  own  works  of  satisfaction,  and  thus  disarm  his 

*On  the  passage  of  St.  Paul :— "  Therefore,  brethren,  stand  fast 
and  hold  the  traditions  which  ye  have  leeu  taught,  whether  by  word, 
or  our  epistle. M 


(     37     ) 

anger,  the  Lord'  will  repair  his  strength,  whereby  he 
shall  be  invigorated  anew."* — lb. 

Ambrose. — "  Let  Christ  see  thee  weeping,  that  he 
may  say,  ■  Blessed  are  they  that  mourn,  for  they  shall  be 
comforted.'  (Mat.  v.  4.)  Therefore,  did  he  immediately 
pardon  Peter,  because  he  wept  bitterly ;  and  if  thou  weep 
in  like  manner,  Christ  will  look  on  thee,  and  thy  sin  will 
be  cancelled Let  no  consideration  then  with- 
hold thee  from  doing  penance.  In  this  imitate  the 
Saints,  and  let  their  tears  be  the  measure  of  thy  own." — 
De  Poznit.  c.  10. 


PRAYERS  FOR  THE  DEAD. 

Cyril  of  Jerusalem. — "  Then  (in  the  Sacrifice  of  the 
Mass)  we  pray  for  the  Holy  Fathers  and  the  Bishops 
that  are  dead;  and,  in  short,  for  all  those  who  are  de- 
parted this  life  in  our  communion ;  believing  that  the 
souls  of  those,  for  whom  the  prayers  are  offered,  receive 
very  great  relief,  while  this  holy  and  tremendous  victim 
lies  upon  the  altar." — Catech.  My  stag.  5. 

Ambrose. — (In  his  Funeral  Oration  on  the  two  Empe- 
rors, Valentinians.)  "  Blessed  shall  you  both  be  if  my 
prayers  can  avail  any  thing.  No  day  shall  pass,  in  which 
I  will  not  mention  you  with  honour ;  no  night  in  which 
you  shall  not  partake  of  my  prayers.  In  all  my  oblations 
I  will  remember  you." 

Epiphanius. — "  There  is  nothing  more  opportune, 
nothing  more  to  be  admired,  than  the  rite  which  directs 
the  names  of  the  Dead  to  be  mentioned.    They  are  aided 

*  See  Bossuet's  defence  of  the  language  of  St.  Cyprian,  on  this  sub- 
ject, in  answer  to  M.  Jurieu.  '•  II  faut,  dit-il  (Saint  Cyprien,)  satisfaire 
a  Dieu  pour  ses  peches  ;  mais  il  faut  aussi  que  la  satisfaction  soit  recue 
par  notre  Seigneur.  II  faut  croire  que  tout  ce  qu'on  fait  n'a  rien  de 
parfait  ni  de  sufnsant  en  soi-meme  puisqu'apres  tout,  quoique  nous 
fassions,  nous  ne  sorames  que  de  serviteurs  inutiles  et  que  nous 
nVavons  pas  raerae  a  nous  glorifier  du  pu  que  nous  faisons,  puisque, 
comme  nous  Tavons  deja  rapporte  tout  nous  vient  de  Dieu  par  Jesus 
Christ,  en  qui  seul  nous  avons  acces  aupres  du  Pere." — flvertissemens 
aux  Protestants.  Such  is  the  much  misrepresented  doctrine  of  Catholics 
on  this  point. 

The  language  of  St.  Augustin  respecting  this  doctrine  is  fully  as 
Popish  as  that  of  St.  Cyprian  : — "  It  is  not  enough,"  he  says,  "  that  the 
sinner  change  his  ways,  and  depart  from  his  evil  works,  unless  by 
penitential  sorrow,  by  bumble  tears,  by  the  sacrifice  of  a  contrite 
heart,  and  by  alms-deeds,  he  make  satisfaction  to  God  for  what  he  has 
committed."— HomiL  1.  T.x. 

4 


(     38      ) 

by  the  Prayer  which  is  offered  for  them,  though  it  may 
not  cancel  all  their  faults. — We  mention  both  the  just 
and  sinners,  in  order  that  for  the  latter  we  may  obtain 
mercy." — Hair.  55. 

Chrysostom. — "  It  is  not  in  vain  that  oblations  and 
prayers  are  offered  and  alms  given  for  the  dead.  So  has 
the  Divine  Spirit  ordained  that  we  might  mutually  assist 
one  another." — Homil.  21.  "  Not  without  reason  was 
it  ordained  by  the  Apostles,  that  in  celebrating  the  Sa- 
cred Mysteries,  the  Dead  should  be  remembered;  for  they 
well  knew  what  advantage  would  thence  be  derived  to 
them." — Homil.  3.  in  Epist.  ad  Philip.  * 


INVOCATION  OF  SAINTS  AND  OF  THE  BLESSED  VIRGIN. 

Origen. — "  We  may  be  allowed  to  say  of  all  the  holy 
men  who  have  quitted  this  life,  retaining  their  charity 
towards  those  whom  they  left  behind,  that  they  are  anx- 
ious for  their  salvation,  and  that  they  assist  them  by  their 
prayers  and  their  meditation  with  God.  For  it  is  written 
in  the  books  of  the  Maccabees,  *  This  is  Jeremiah,  the 
prophet  of  God,  who  always  prays  for  the  people.' — Lib. 
3.  in  Cant.  Cantic.  4 1  will  fall  down  on  my  knees,  and, 
not  presuming,  on  account  of  my  crimes,  to  present  my 
prayer  to  God,  I  will  invoke  all  the  saints  to  my  assis- 
tance. O  ye  saints  of  Heaven,  I  beseech  you  with  a  sor- 
row full  of  sighs  and  tears,  fall  at  the  feet  of  the  Lord  of 
Mercies  for  me,  a  miserable  sinner.' " — Lib.  2.  de  Job. 

Cyprian. — "  Let  us  be  mindful  of  one  another  in  our 
prayers;  with  one  mind,  and  with  one  heart,  in  this 
world,  and  in  the  next,  let  us  always  pray,  with  mutual 
charity  relieving  our  sufferings  and  afflictions.     And  may 

*On  the  subject  of  Prayers  for  the  Dead  there  occurs  an  interesting 
passage  in  St.  Ephrem  of  Edessa,  which  appears  to  have  escaped  the 
notice  of  my  friend.  In  a  work  entitled  his  Testament,  this  pious 
Father  thus  speaks  :— My  brethren,  come  to  me,  and  prepare  me  for 
my  departure,  for  my  strength  is  wholly  gone.  Go  along  with  me 
in  psalms  and  in  your  prayers,  and  please  constantly  to  make  oblations 
forme.  When  the  thirtieth  day  shall  be  completed,  then  remember 
me  ;  for  the  dead  are  helped  by  the  offerings  of  the  living. — Now  listen 
with  patience  to  what  I  shall  mention  from  the  Scriptures.  Moses 
bestowed  blessings  on  Reuben  after  the  third  generation  (Deut.  xxxiii. 
6.;)  but,  if  the  Dead  are  not  aided,  why  was  he  blessed?  Again,  if 
they  be  insensible,  hear  what  the  Apostle  says : — *  If  the  dead  rise  not 
again  at  all,  why  are  they  then  baptized  far  them  V  (I  Cor,  xv.  29."; 


(     39     ) 

the  charity  of  him  who,  by  the  divine  favour,  shall  first 
depart  hence,  still  persevere  before  the  Lord ;  may  his 
prayer,  for  our  brethren  and  sisters,  be  unceasing'." — De 
Habitu  Virg. 

Athanasius. — "  Hear  now,  oh  daughter  of  David ;  in- 
cline thine  ear  to  our  prayers. — We  raise  our  cry  to  thee. 
Remember  us,  oh!  most  Holy  Virgin,  and  for  the  feeble 
eulogiums  we  give  thee,  grant  us  great  gifts  from  the 
treasures  of  thy  graces,  thou,  who  art  full  of  grace. — 
Hail,  Mary,  full  of  grace,  the  Lord  is  with  thee.  Queen 
and  Mother  of  God,  intercede  for  us." — Serm.  in  Annunt. 

Hilary. — "  According  to  Raphael,  speaking  to  Tobias, 
there  are  Angels  who  serve  before  the  face  of  God,  and 
who  convey  to  him  the  prayers  of  the  suppliant. — It  is 
not  the  character  of  the  Deity  that  stands  in  need  of  this 
intercession,  but  our  infirmity  does. — God  is  not  ignorant 
of  any  thing  that  we  do:  but  the  weakness  of  man,  to  sup- 
plicate and  to  obtain,  calls  for  the  ministry  of  the  spiri- 
tual intercession."— In  Psalm  129. 

Basil. — (In  celebrating  the  Feast  of  the  Forty  Martyrs) 
"  O  ye  common  guardians  of  the  human  race,  co-opera- 
tors in  our  prayers,  most  powerful  messengers,  stars  of 
the  world  and  flowers  of  Churches,  let  us  join  our 
prayers  with  yours." — Horn.  19. 

Ephrem  of  Edessa. — "  I  entreat  you,  oh !  Holy  Mar- 
tyrs, who  have  suffered  so  much  for  the  Lord,  that  you 
would  intercede  for  us  with  Him  that  he  bestow  his 
grace  on  us." — Encom.  in  SS.  Mart.  "  We  fly  to 
thy  patronage,  Holy  mother  of  God:  protect  and  guard 
us,  under  the  wings  of  thy  mercy  and  kindness. — Most 
merciful  God,  through  the  intercession  of  the  most 
Blessed  Virgin  Mary,  and  of  all  the  Angels,  and  of  all 
the  Saints,  show  pity  to  thy  creature." — Serm.  de  Laud. 
B.  Mar.  Virg. 


RELICS  AND  IMAGES. 

Hilary. — "  The  holy  blood  of  the  Martyrs  is  every 
where  received,  and  their  venerable  bones  daily  bear 
witness." — L.  contra  Constant. 

Basil. — "  If  any  one  suffer  for  the  name  of  Christ,  his 
remains  are  deemed  precious :  and,  if  any  one  touch  the 
bones  of  a  martyr,  he  becomes  partaker,  in  some  degree, 


(     40     ) 

of  his  holiness,  on  account  of  the  grace  residing  in  them. 
Wherefore,  "  precious  in  the  sight  of  God  is  the  death  of 
his  Saints.'  " — Serm.  in  Psalm  115. 

"  I  receive  the  Apostles,  the  Prophets  and  the  Martyrs. 
I  invoke  them  to  pray  for  me,  and  that  by  their  interces- 
sion God  may  be  merciful  to  me  and  forgive  my  trans- 
gressions. For  this  reason  I  revere  and  honour  their 
images,  especially  since  we  are  taught  to  do  so  by  the 
tradition  of  the  holy  Apostles;  and  so  far  from  these 
being  forbidden  us,  they  appear  in  our  Churches." — Ep. 
nd  Julian* 

Ephrem. — "The  grace  of  the  divine  spirit,  which 
works  miracles  in  them,  ever  resides  in  the  Relics  of  the 
Saints." — In  Encom.  omnium  Mart. 

Ambrose. — "I  honour,  therefore,  in  the  body  of  the  Mar- 
tyr, the  wounds  that  he  received  in  the  name  of  Christ ; 
I  honour  the  memory  of  that  virtue  which  shall  never 
die;  I  honour  those  ashes  which  the  confession  of  Faith 
has  consecrated ;  I  honour  in  them  the  seeds  of  eternity : 
I  honour  that  body  which  has  taught  me  to  love  the 
Lord,  and  not  to  fear  death  for  his  sake." — Serm.  55. 

Chrysostom. — "  Next  to  the  power  of  speech,  the  mo- 
numents of  Saints  are  best  adapted,  when  we  look  on 
them,  to  excite  us  to  the  imitation  of  their  virtues. 
Here  when  any  one  stands,  he  feels  himself  seized  by  a 
certain  force ;  the  view  of  the  shrine  strikes  on  his  heart ; 
he  is  affected,  as  if  he  that  there  lies  were  present,  and 
offered  up  prayers  for  him.  Thus  does  a  certain  alacrity 
come  over  him,  and,  changed  almost  to  another  man,  he 
quits  the  place.  For  this  reason,  then,  has  God  left  us 
the  Remains  of  the  Saints." — Lib.  contra  Gent.  "That 
which  neither  riches  nor  gold  can  effect,  the  Relics  of 
Martyrs  can.  Gold  never  dispelled  diseases  nor  warded 
off  death;  but  the  bones  of  Martyrs  have  done  both. 
In  the  days  of  our  forefathers,  the  former  happened; 
the  latter  in  our  own." — Homil.  67.  de  St.  Drosid.  Mart. 

Gregory  of  Nyssa. — (In  his  Oration  on  the  Feast  of 
the  Martyr   Theodorus)  "  when  any  one  enters  such  a 

*  In  quoting  tbis  Epistle  to  Julian,  as  from  the  pen  of  St.  Basil, 
my  young  friend  has  not  shown  his  usual  accuracy.  The  fragment 
from  which  the  above  passage  is  taken,  though  extant  among  the 
Acts  of  the  Second  Nicene  Council,  is  given  up,  I  believe,  as  spurious, 
by  the  most  judicious  Catholic  writers;  and  even  the  zealous  Baronius, 
though  he  produces  the  fragment,  forbears  cautiously  from  laying  any 
Btreii  upon  it,  as  authority. 


(     41     ) 

place  as  this,  where  the  memory  of  this  just  man  and  his 
relics  are  preserved,  his  mind  is  first  struck,  while  he 
views  the  structure  and  all  its  ornaments,  with  the  gene- 
ral magnificence  that  breaks  upon  him.  The  artist  has 
here  shown  his  skill  in  the  figures  of  animals  and  the 
airy  sculpture  of  the  stone,  while  the  painter  s  hand  is 
most  conspicuous  in  delineating  the  high  achievements 

of  the  Martyr The  figure  of  Christ  is  also 

beheld  looking  down  upon  the  scene" 

Nilus. — "  In  the  chancel  of  the  most  sacred  temple, 
towards  the  east,  let  there  be  one  and  only  one  Cross  .  . 
Let  the  sacred  temple  be  filled  with  pictures  well  exe- 
cuted by  tfie  most  celebrated  artists,  representing  the  most 
remarkable  events  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments;  that  the 
unlettered  and  those  who  are  incapable  of  reading  the  di- 
vine Scriptures  may,  by  the  sight  of  the  picture,  be  in- 
structed in  the  virtuous  deeds  of  those  who  have  served 
the  true  God,  according  to  his  own  will  and  command." 
Lib.  4.  Ep.  61. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Invocation  of  the  Virgin. — Gospel  of  the  Infancy,  &c— Louis  XL— 
Bonaventura.— St.  Ambrose,  St.  Basil,  and  Doctor  Doyle. 

In  the  foregoing  list,  containing  a  few  of  those  "  abomi- 
nations "  of  Popery,  which  I  found  sanctioned  by  the 
highest  authorities  of  the  Christian  Church,  there  is  one 
placed  under  the  head  of  "Invocation  of  Saints,"  to 
which  I  had  not  before  adverted,  namely,  the  devotion 
(or,  as  Protestants  will  have  it,)  idolatry  paid  by  Papists 
to  the  Blessed  Virgin.  There  appears  no  doubt  that  this 
worship,  within  the  due  bounds  to  which  all  rational 
Catholics  would  confine  it,  formed  a  part  of  the  devotions 
of  Christians,  from  the  very  first  ages  of  the  Church. 
In  the  Second  Century  we  find  Irenaeus,  the  great  light 
of  that  age,  attributing  such  power  to  the  intercession  of 
the  Virgin  with  God,  as  to  suppose  her  the  advocate,  in 
heaven,  for  the  fallen  mother  of  mankind,  Eve.  The 
Gospel  of  the  Infancy  of  Jesus,  a  work  referred  to  the  same 

4* 


(     43      ) 

period,  and  which,  though  manifestly  an  imposture,* 
may,  at  least,  be  depended  upon,  as  an  echo  of  the  tone 
prevalent  among  the  orthodox  of  its  times,  in  relating  the 
circumstances  which  took  place  previously  to  our  Lord's 
nativity,  gives  to  the  Virgin  simply  the  name  of  "  Mary," 
but  immediately  after  that  event,  styles  her  the  "  Divine 
Mary,"  and  adds  that  Churches  were,  in  those  times,  de- 
dicated to  her  honour.f 

In  the  irritation  which,  I  own,  I  could  not  help  feeling 
at  the  discovery  of  this  fresh  proof  of  Popery,  in  the  ear- 
ly ages  of  the  Church,  I  found  myself  secretly  wishing 
that  it  might  also  be  in  my  power  to  detect,  in  those 
times,  the  same  extravagant  follies  respecting  the  wor- 
ship of  the  Virgin,  which,  in  after  ages,  brought  such 
discredit  upon  the  religion  that  was  made  responsible  for 
them,  and  by  which  alone,  indeed,  most  Protestants  form 
their  judgment  of  the  Catholic  faith  on  this  subject.]:  I 
allude  not  so  much  to  the  gross  extravagances  of  those 
who  have  installed  the  Virgin  as  a  Fourth  Person  of  the 
Godhead,  or  to  such  superstitious  follies  as  that  of  Louis 
XL,  who,  by  a  formal  contract,  made  over  to  the  Mother 
of  God  all  right  and  title  in  the  fee  and  privileges  of  the 
Comte  de  Boulogne, — not  so  much  to  these  blasphemous 
absurdities  do  I  allude,,  as  to  that  injudicious  excess  of 
zeal  which  led  Bonaventura  and  other  distinguished  Ca- 
tholics to  claim  for  the  Virgin  a  rank  in  the  scale  of  su- 


*  With  this  Gospel  another  apocryphal  work,  of  the  game  high 
antiquity,  is  usually  joined,  to  wit,  the  Gospel  of  the  Birth  of  Mary,  in 
which  it  is  declared  that  the  object  of  her  espousals  with  Joseph  was, 
not  that  he  might  make  her  his  wife,  but  that  he  might  be  the  guardian 
of  her  perpetual  Virginity  ;  the  High  Priest  having  said  to  him,  *'Thou 
nrt  the  person  chosen  totake  the"  Virgin  of  the  Lord,  to  keep  her  for 
him."  • 

t  The  minister,  Jurieu,  contended  that  the  claims  of  the  Virgin  to 
invocation  or  worship  were  not  admitted  till  after  that  decision  of  the 
Council  of  Ephesus,  which,  in  opposition  to  Nestorius,  pronounced 
Mary  to  be  the  mother  of  God.  It  is  well  answered,  however,  by  Bos- 
suet,  that  the  very  Church  in  which  that  Council  was  held  bore  testi- 
mony to  the  honours  already  paid  to  the  Virgin  by  its  having  been 
dedicated  to  her  name.  He  refers  also  to  a  circumstance  which,  long 
before  the  sitting  of  that  Council,  St.  Gregory  of  Nazianzum  had  re- 
lated of  a  female  martyr  in  the  third  century,  who  prayed  to  the 
Blessed  Mary  "  to  aid  a  virgin  who  was  in  peril." 

X  The  Lutheran  Goetzius~  assuming  charitably  that  female  saints, 
— Mary,  Anne,  Catherine,  Manraret,  &c.  (as  he  enumerates  them,)— 
form  the  principal  object  of  worship  with  the  Catholics,  calls  their 
faith  a  womanish  Religion."— rcligio  muliebris.  See  his  Meletemata 
Annaebergensia. 


(     43     ) 

perior  beings  much  higher  than  either  reason  or  true  pie- 
ty would  assign  to  her.* 

So  far  from  finding,  however,  in  the  first  ages,  any 
sanction  for  such  pretensions,  I  soon  discovered  that 
though,  even  then,  some  abuses  of  this  worship  had  in- 
truded themselves,  the  great  teachers  of  Christian  doc- 
trine rebuked  and  denounced  them  as  idolatrous:  nor 
could  there  be  given,  perhaps,  a  more  faithful  exposition 
of  all  that  the  Catholics  of  the  present  day  think  and  feel 
on  this  subject,  than  is  to  be  found  in  the  following  re- 
marks, which  the  great  antagonist  of  heresies,  Epiphanius, 
directed  against  some  female  heretics  of  his  time,  by  whom 
a  more  than  due  share  of  honour  was  paid  to  the  Vir- 
gin:— "  Her  body  (he  says)  was,  I  own,  holy,  but  she  was 
no  God.  She  continued  a  Virgin,  but  she  is  not  proposed 
for  our  adoration; — she  herself  adoring  him  who,  having 
descended  from  heaven  and  the  bosom  of  his  Father,  was 

born  of  her  flesh Though,  therefore,  .she  was 

a  chosen  vessel,  and  endowed  with  eminent  sanctity,  still 
she  is  a  woman,  partaking  of  our  common  nature,  but  de- 
serving of  the  highest  honours  shown  to  the  Saints  of 
God. — She  stands  before  them  all  on  account  of  the  hea- 
venly mystery  accomplished  in  her.  But  we  adore  no 
saint:  and  as  this  worship  is  not  given  to  angels,  much 
less  can  it  be  allowed  to  the  daughter  of  Ann. — Let  Mary, 
therefore,  be  honoured;  but  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost  alone  be  adored:  let  no  one  adore  Mary." — Adv. 
Collyridianos\  Hcer.  59. 

*  The  absurdity  of  ths  learned  Tripsins  (one  of  those  many  literati, 
whose  whole  due  of  fame  is,  as  it  were,  discounted  to  them  while 
living)  in  bequeathing  his  best  fur  cloak  to  the  Virgin  on  his  death- 
bed, drew  down  from  the  Netherland  wits  a  burst  of  ridicule  upon  his 
memory,  which  the  defence  of  the  bequest  by  his  friend  Wowerius 
(Assertio  Lipsiani  Don  an)  was  but  ill  calculated  to  extinguish. 

Of  the  lengths  to  which  some  pious  enthusiasts  in  the  cause  of  the 
Virgin  have  gone,  many  curious  instances  might  be  collected.  For 
example,  the  following  thesis,  put  forth  by  the  Recollets  of  Liege,  in 
1076. — "  Frequens  confessio  et  communio,  et  cultns  B.  Virginia  etiam 
in  iis,  qui  gentiliter  vivunt,  sunt  signum  predestinationis ;"  and,  still 
more  absurd,  the  assertion  of  a  Portuguese  Jesuit,  Francis  Mendoza, 
**  impossibile  esse  ut  B.  Virginis  cuitor  in  sternum  damnetur."  These 
are,  to  be  sure,  wretched  extravagances;  but  if  the  excess  or  per  ver- 
sion of  a  religious  belief  is  to  be  assumed  as  an  argument  against  the 
belief  itself,  far  more  vital  points  of  faith  than  the  intercessorial 
power  of  the  Virgin  may  suffer  by  such  logic. 

t  These  heretics,  who  were  chiefly  women,  used  to  offer  up  to  the 
Virgin  a  particular  kind  of  cake,  or  bun,  called  in  Greek,  Collyris. 
The«r  grand  offering,  however,  was  a  loaf,  which,  at  a  stated  seasofi 


(     44     ) 

Precisely  such,  as  I  conceive,  is  the  wide  and  essential 
distinction  which  a  Catholic  divine  of  our  own  days 
would  draw  between  adoration  and  honour; — between 
the  worship  due  only  to  God,  and  that  devout  veneration 
which,  in  common  with  all  Christian  antiquity,  we  should 
offer  to  her  whom  an  inspired  voice  pronounced  "blessed 
among  women,"  and  "the  Mother  of  the  Lord." 

In  short,  looking-  back  from  the  point  where  I  had  now 
arrived  to  the  whole  course  and  results  of  my  search 
through  those  ages,  I  found  myself  forced  to  confess,  that 
the  Popery  of  the  nineteenth  century  differs  in  no  respect 
from  the  Christianity  of  the  third  and  fourth ;  and  that  if 
St.  Ambrose,  St.  Basil,  and  a  few  more  such  "  flowers  of 
Churches,"  had  been  able  to  borrow  the  magic  night- 
caps of  their  cotemporaries,  the  Seven  Sleepers,  and  were 
now,  after  a  nap  of  about  fifteen  centuries,  just  opening 
their  eyes  in  the  town  of  Carlow,  they  would  find  in  the 
person  of  Dr.  Doyle,  the  learned  Bishop  of  Leighlin  and 
Ferns,  not  only  an  Irishman  whose  acquaintance  even 
they  might  be  proud  to  make,  but  a  fellow  Catholic  every 
iota  of  whose  creed  would  be  found  to  correspond  exactly 
with  thtur  own. 


m       ,  >  J**,    fflfc    ^44ti  t»   ■ 


CHAPTER  IX. 


Prayers  for  the  Dead. — Purgatory.— Penitential  Discipline. — Confes- 
sion.— Origen.— St.  Ambrose.— Apostrophe  to  the  Shade  of  Father 
O'H  *  *. 


Among  those  articles  of  Popery  which  I  have  enume- 
rated as  pre-existing  in  the  creed  of  the  Primitive  Church, 
there  are  two,  rather  implied  than  mentioned,  namely,  a 
belief  in  Purgatory  and  auricular  Confession,  concerning 
which  I  have  to  offer  a  few  brief  remarks. 

The  solemn  usage  of  praying  for  the  Dead,  can  be  found- 
ed only  on  the  belief  that  there  exists  a  middle  state  of  puri- 


cf  the  year,  they  presented  to  her  with  much  solemnity,  and  then 
each  of  them  partook  of  the  oblation.  In  this  ceremony,  the  wo- 
icaen  performed  tfie  office  of  Priesthood. 


(     45      ) 

fication  and  suffering  through  which  souls  pass  after 
death,  and  from  which  the  prayers  of  the  faithful  may  aid 
in  delivering  them.  The  antiquity,  therefore,  of  the  use 
of  Prayers  for  the  Dead  (and  we  trace  them  through  all 
the  most  ancient  Liturgies)  sufficiently  prove  to  us  how 
ancient  was  the  belief  on  which  they  are  founded.  From 
the  Second  Book  of  the  Maccabees  (taking  these  Books 
merely  in  the  Protestant  view  of  them,  as  an  uncanonical 
but  authentic  record)  we  learn  that  the  ancient  Jews,  on 
this  point,  held  the  same  faith  as  the  Catholics: — "It  is, 
therefore,  a  holy  and  a  wholesome  thought  to  pray  for  the 
dead,  that  they  may  be  loosed  from  their  sins." 

We  cannot  wonder  that  such  a  belief  should  be  thus 
ancient,  for  assuredly  none  can  be  more  natural ;  nor,  on 
the  other  hand,  can  any  thing  be  less  consistent  either 
with  our  knowledge  of  human  nature,  or  our  notions  of 
the  divine,  than  such  an  absence  of  all  gradation,  both  in 
reward  and  punishment,  as  the  wTant  of  an  intermediate 
state  between  heaven  and  hell  must  imply.  What  the 
Protestant  divine,  Paley,  has  said  on  the  subject  of  Pur- 
gatory appears  to  me  to  be  founded  on  such  sentiments  as 
both  reason  and  nature  approve:  "Who  can  bear,"  he 
asks,  "  the  thought  of  dwelling  in  everlasting  torments  1 
Yet  who  can  say  that  a  God  everlastingly  just  will  not 
inflict  them]  The  mind  of  man  seeks  for  some  resource: 
it  finds  one  only  in  conceiving  that  some  temporary  pu- 
nishment, after  death,  may  purify  the  soul  from  its  moral 
pollutions,  and  make  it  at  last  acceptable  even  to  a  Deir 
ty  infinitely  pure." 

Fully  agreeing  with  Paley  on  this  point,  it  was  with 
some  pleasure  I  now  discovered  that,  from  Justin  Martyr 
down  to  Basil  and  Ambrose,  all  the  Fathers  of  the  first 
four  ages  concur  in  opinion  as  to  the  existence  of  such  an 
intermediate  state ; — the  greater  number  of  them  inter- 
preting a  remarkable  passage  of  St  Paul  (1  Cor.  iii.  13, 
14,  15,)  as  denoting  expressly  some  region  of  purgation 
for  the  soul,  where  "  the  fire  shall  try  every  man's  work 
of  what  sort  it  is,"  and  where,  as  Origen  explains  the 
passage,  "  each  crime  shall,  in  proportion  to  its  charac- 
ter, experience  a  just  degree  of  punishment."  Referring 
to  the  same  passage  of  the  Apostle,  St.  Ambrose  says, 
"  From  hence  it  may  be  collected,  that  the  same  man  is 
saved  in  part,  and  is  condemned  in  part;"  and,  again,  in 
a  Commentary  on  this  Epistle,  he  remarks: — "  The  Apos- 


(     46     ) 

tie  said,  'He  shall  be  saved,  yet  so  as  by  fire,'  in  order 
that  his  salvation  be  not  understood  to  be  without  pain. 
He  shows  that  he  shall  be  saved  indeed,  but  that  he  shall 
undergo  the  pain  of  fire,  and  be  thus  purified ;  not  like 
the  unbelieving  and  wicked  man  who  shall  be  punished 
in  everlasting  fire.*' — Comment,  in  1  Ep.  ad  Cor.  With 
similar  views  it  was  maintained  by  St.  Hilary  (and  Ori- 
gen  seems  to  have  been  of  the  same  opinion)  that,  after 
the  day  of  Judgment,  all — even  the  Blessed  Virgin  her- 
self—must alike  pass  through  this  fire,  to  purify  them 
from  their  sins. 

The  system  of  Penitential  Discipline,*  of  which  Con- 
fession forms  one  of  the  most  important  parts,  was,  as  we 
learn  from  the  ecclesiastical  historian,  Socrates,  observed 
by  the  Bishops  of  Rome  from  the  very  earliest  times;  and 
the  public  penance  of  the  Emperor  Theodosius,  in  the 
great  Church  of  Milan,  proves  what  deference  continued 
to  be  paid  to  the  same  spiritual  ordinance,  after  Christi- 
anity had  become  the  established  religion  of  the  Empire. 
Far  different,  however,  were  the  notions  of  Repentance 
prevailing  among  the  early  Christians  from  those  that 
have  since  been  taught  by  the  Apostles  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, who,  in  abolishing  Confession,  Penitential  Fasting, 
&c.  and  getting  rid  of  all  that  slow,  humbling  process  of 
self-accusation  and  penance,  by  which  the  Catholic  Church 
has,  through  all  ages,  disciplined  her  erring  children, 
seem  to  have  thought  of  little  else  than  consulting  the 
comfort  of  the  sinner,  and  rendering  his  road  to  salvation 
short  and  easy.  "  There  is  yet,"  says  Origen,  "  a  more 
severe  and  arduous  pardon  of  sin  by  penance,  when  the 
sinner  washes  his  couch  with  his  tears,  and  when  he 
blushes  not  to  disclose  his  sin  to  the  Priest  of  the  Lord, 

*  As,  in  this  world,  the  abuse  of  all  good  gifts  follows  as  naturally 
on  their  use  as  shadows  do  on  lights,  it  can  little  surprise  us  to  rind 
that  the  Sacrament  of  Penance  was  as  much  perverted  from  its  true  in- 
tention and  spirit  by  the  weak  Catholics  of  other  days,  as  it  is,  and  will 
be,  perverted  by  the  same  description  of  Catholics  "to  the  end  of  time. 
The  existence  of  such  false  notions  of  Penance,  in  his  own  days,  is 
thus  noticed  and  reprehended  by  St.  Ambrose: — "There  are  some  who 
ask  for  penance,  that  they  may  be  at  once  restored  to  communion. 
These  do  not  so  much  desire  to  be  loosed  as  to  bind  the  Priest,  for  they  do 
not  unburden  their  own  consciences,  but  they  burden  his.  *  *  *  Thus 
you  may  see  persons  walking  about  in  white  garments,  who  ought  to 
be  in  tears  for  having  defiled  that  colour  of  grace  and  innocence. 
Others  there  are,  who,  provided  they  abstain  frornthe  Holy  Sacraments, 
fancy  they  are  doing  penance.  Others,  while  they  have  this  in  view, 
conclude  they  are  licensed  to  sin,  not  aware  that"  penance  is  the  re- 
medy, not  the  provocative  of  sin."— De  Pcenit.I.  2.  c.  9. 


(     47     ) 

and  to  ask  a  remedy.*  Thus  is  fulfilled  what  the  Apos- 
tle says,.  'Is  any  man  sick  among  you,  let  him  bring  in 
the  Priest^  of  the  Church.'  (James  v.  14.") 

Of  St.  Ambrose  it  is  said,  by  his  secretary  and  biogra- 
pher, that  "  as  often  as  any  one,  in  doing  penance,  con- 
fessed his  faults  to  him,  he  wept  so  as  to  draw  tears  from 
the  sinner.  He  seemed  to  take  part  in  every  act  of  sor- 
row. But,  as  to  the  occasions  or  causes  of  the  crimes 
which  they  confessed,  these  he  revealed  to  no  one  but  God, 
with  whom  he  interceded ;  leaving  this  good  example  to 
his  successors  in  the  Priesthood,  that  they  should  be  in- 
tercessors with  God,  not  accusers  before  men." — Paulin. 
in  Vita  Ambros.  The  writings,  indeed,  of  that  age 
abound  with  affecting  remarks  upon  the  sacred  and  deli- 
cate duty  which  a  Confessor  has  to  perform,  and  the  con- 
soling balm  he  may  apply  to  wounded  and  repentant  spi- 
rits. *  Show  me  bitter  tears  (says  St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa) 
that  I  may  mingle  mine  with  yours.  Impart  your  trouble 
to  the  Priest,  as  to  your  Father;  he  will  be  touched  with 
a  sense  of  your  misery.  Show  to  him  what  is  concealed, 
without  blushing ; — open  the  secrets  of  your  soul,  as  if 
you  were  showing  to  a  physician  a  hidden  disorder ;  he 
will  take  care  of  your  honour  and  of  your  cure." — Serm. 
de  Pcenit. 

How  often,  in  reading  such  passages,  did  I  call  to  mind 
my  own  innocent  and  Popery-believing  days,  when,  aa 
the  regular  season  for  Confession  returned,  I  used  to  set 
off,  early  in  the  morning,  to  — —  Street  Chapel,  trem- 
bling all  over  with  awe  at  the  task  that  was  before  me, 
but  still  firmly  resolved  to  tell  the  worst,  without  dis- 
guise. How  vividly  do  I,  even  at  this  moment,  remember 
kneeling  down  by  the  Confessional,  and  feeling  my  heart 
beat  quicker,  as  the  sliding-panel  in  the  side  opened,  and 
I  saw  the  meek  and  venerable  head  of  the  kind  Father 

O'H stooping  down  to  hear  my  whispered  list  of  sins. 

The  paternal  look  of  the  old  man, — the  gentleness  of  hia 
voice,  even  in  rebuke, — the  encouraging  hopes  he  gave 
of  mercy  as  the  sure  reward  of  contrition  and  reforma- 
tion,— all  these  recollections  came  freshly  over  my  mind, 
as  I  now  read  the  touching  language  employed  by  some 
of  the  Fathers  on  this  subject;  language  such  as  the  fol- 
lowing, from  the  Homilies  of  Origen,  which,  though  writ- 

*  St.  Augustin  also  writes :    "  Our  merciful  God  wills  us  to  confess 
in  this  world  that  we  may  not  be  confounded  in  the  other."— Horn.  20. 


(     48     ) 

ten  when  Christianity  was  little  more  than  200  years  old, 
is  as  applicable  to  many  a  Catholic  Confessor  of  our  owa 
times,  as  if  indited  but  yesterday.  "  Only  let  the  sinner 
carefully  consider  to  whom  he  should  confess  his  sin, 
what  is  the  character  of  the  physician; — if  he  be  one  who 
will  be  weak  with  the  weak,  who  will  weep  with  the  sor- 
rowful, and  who  understands  the  discipline  of  condolence 
and  fellow-feeling:  so  that  when  his  skill  shall  be  known, 
and  his  pity  felt,  you  may  follow  what  he  shall  advise.1' — 
HomiL  2.  in  Psalm  27.  "  If  we  discover  our  sins,  not 
only  to  God,  but  to  those  who  may  thus  apply  a  remedy 
to  our  wounds  and  iniquities,  our  sins  will  be  effaced  by 
him  who  said,  ■  I  have  blotted  out  thy  iniquities  as  a  cloud, 
and  thy  sins  as  a  mist'  " — HomiL  17.  in  Lucayn. 

Shade  of  my  reverend  Pastor,  could st  thou  have  looked 
down  upon  me,  in  the  midst  of  my  folios,  how  it  would 
have  grieved  thy  meek  spirit  to  see  the  humble  little  vi- 
siter of  thy  confessional, — him  whom  sometimes  thou  hast 
doomed,  for  his  sins,  to  read  the  Seven  Penitential  Psalms 
daily, — to-  see  him  forgetting  so  soon  the  docility  of  those 
undoubting  days,  and  setting  himself  up,  God  help  him, 
as  controvertist  and  Protestant  1 


"•  Ml)£  x^  ©t^**— 


CHAPTER  X. 


The  Eucharist.— A  glimpse  of  Protestantism.— Type,  Figure,  Sisrn,  tee. 
—Glimpse  lost  again.— St.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem.— St.  Cyprian— St.  Je- 
rom.— St.  Chrysostom.— Tertullian. 

In  tracing  the  doctrines  of  Popery  through  the  third 
and  fourth  ages,  I  have  reserved,  as  may  have  been  re- 
marked, one  of  the  most  important  of  them  all, — that  re- 
lating to  the  Eucharist, — for  separate  consideration;  and 
this  I  have  done  not  merely  on  account  of  the  great  im- 
portance of  the  doctrine  itself,  but  because  on  this  point 
alone  could  I  at  all  flatter  myself  with  having  discovered 
any  little  glimmerings  of  that  Protestant  Christianity  of 
which  I  was  in  search. 

The  two  first  centuries,  I  saw  clearly,  must  be  given 
up  as  desperate ;  the  language  employed  upon  this  sub- 


(    49    ) 

ject  by  Ignatius,  Justin  Martyr,  and  Irenaeus,  having 
abundantly  convinced  me  that,  in  those  apostolic  times* 
the  literal  or  Popish  interpretation  of  the  words  "This  is 
my  body  "  was  the  accepted  doctrine ;  and  that  the  Chris- 
tians of  the  Primitive  Church  believed  not  only  in  the 
Real,  corporal  Presence,  but  in  the  miraculous  change  of 
substance  after  consecration.  In  the  present  depressed 
state  of  my  hopes,  however, — lowered  as  they  were  to  the 
freezing  temperature, — I  would  have  compounded  gladly 
for  a  sample  of  Protestantism  even  of  a  much  less  ancient 
date  ;  and  it  was  therefore  with  considerable  satisfaction 
I  had  discovered  in  some  writers  of  the  third  century  the 
use  of  such  expressions,  in  speaking  of  the  Eucharist,  as 
"  Type,"  "  Antitype,"  "  Figure,"  &c,  which  seemed  to 
afford  a  sort  of  escape  from  the  difficulties  of  a  Real  Pre- 
sence into  the  vague  and  figurative  substitute  for  that  mi- 
racle which,  on  the  principle  of  believing  "made  easy," 
has  been  adopted  by  Protestants. 

My  self-gratulation,  however,  on  this  discovery  was  but 
of  very  short  duration.     In  the  first  place,  I  soon  found 
that  this  use  of  the  words  "  Type,"  "  Antitype,"  "  Sign," 
&c.  is  not  confined  to  those  few  Fathers  to  whom  the 
Protestants  look  up  as  authority,  but  that  the  same  terms5 
have  been  also  applied  to  the  Eucharist  by  several  of  those 
writers  whose  real  opinions  respecting  the  nature  of  that 
Sacrament  are  known  to  have  been  as  transubstantiatory 
as  Popish  heart  could  desire.     Thus  the  great  Catechist, 
Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  who,  in  his  doctrine  concerning  the 
Real  Presence,  goes  the  full  lengths  of  all  that  Rome  has 
ever  asserted  on  the  subject,  yet  applies  to  the  Eucharist 
the  word  "  Type,"  and  that  in  a  manner  which  seems  to 
bear  out  the  opinions  of  those  who  think  that  the  term,  as 
thus  employed  by  the  Fathers,  denoted  but  the  external 
appearance,  or  accidents,  of  the  Eucharistic  elements.  "In 
the  type  of  bread  (says  Cyril)  is  given  to  thee  the  body, 
and  in  the  type  of  wine  is  given  to  thee  the  blood."*     In 
the  same  manner,  in  one  of  those  Liturgies  which  go  un- 
der the  name  of  St.  Basil,  we  find  the  bread  and  wine  of- 
fered under  the  name  of  Antitypes,  while  in  the  prayer 
that  follows,  the  Holy  Spirit  is  invoked  to  come  down  and 

*   Ev  ruffa  X*g  x^rou  JJotm  gu  vm^'A  xxt  iv  tuna)  ctvou  <T^V 

5 


(     50     ) 

bless  the  gifts,  and  "  make  *  the  bread  the  body  and  the 
wine  the  blood  of  Christ.*' 

If  we  may  rely,  indeed,  on  the  authenticity  of  a  passage, 
adduced  by  Bullinger  from  some  MS.  writings  of  Origen, 
— and  I  see  no  reason  to  doubt  the  honesty  of  the  Re- 
former, in  this  instance, — it  would  appear,  that  Origen 
foresaw  the  heresy  that  was  likely  to  arise  on  this  point, 
and  thus,  by  referring  to  the  direct  words  of  our  Saviour* 
endeavoured  to  guard  against  it. — "He  did  not  say  (ob- 
serves Origen)  '  this  is  a  symbol,'  but  '  this  is  a  body;' — 
indicating  thereby  that  nobody  must  suppose  it  to  be  a 
type."f  Another  passage,  still  more  strongly  to  the  same 
purport,  is  quoted  by  the  same  eminent  Protestant,  Bul- 
linger, from  the  writings  of  Magnes,  a  Priest  of  Jerusa- 
lem, who  flourished  in  the  third  century: — "The  Eucha- 
rist is  not  a  type  of  the  body  and  blood,  as  some  men, 
defective  in  their  understanding,  have  babbled,  but  rather 
the  body  and  blood."J 

But,  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  authenticity 
of  these  passages,  I  found  to  my  sorrow,  that  the 
Catholic  view  of  the  matter  did  not  want  the  aid  of  any 
such  questionable  authorities.  So  far,  indeed,  from  con- 
sidering the  Eucharist  to  be,  itself,  merely  typical  or 
symbolical,  trie  early  Christians,  on  the  contrary,  held  it 
to  be  the  accomplishment  or  reality  of  what  had  been 
but  typical,  under  the  Old  Law.  In  the  bread  and  wine 
offered  by  Melchisedek,  the  "Priest  of  the  Most  High 
God,"  they  saw  the  figure  or  shadow  of  that  Sacrifice 
which  was  to  be  instituted,  from  the  same  elements,  in 
the  Eucharist, — the  type,  in  short,  of  that  great  mystery 
of  which  the  Eucharist  is  the  reality  and  the  verity. 
"That  the  blessing  given  to  Abraham  (says  Cyprian) 
might  be  properly  celebrated,  the  representation  of  the 
Sacrifice  of  Christ,  appointed  in  bread  and  wine,  pre- 
ceded it;  which  our  Lord  perfecting  and  fulfilling    it, 

*  Arzikirct.i,  which,  as  Suicerus  acknowledges,  signifies  here  to 
render  or  make. 

J   O'J    >.tfg    UTTi    VtVTC    VTTl   cu/u&o.cv,    aw'   Tcvro    ITTl    CCS/AX 

J/ftT/jta?,  /v*  fxa  rqt  i>i  ns  rvuroi  uvsu. 

\  Ovk  strrtv  Ev^acgjpriac  rosrg  twi  c&y.zrcc  y-xt  <r:u  cuuzrec, 
ffTTn^  rate  i^n-lSccvT-xv  srasnigAAt?ej  t;v  vct/v,  /uu,h?,cv  £i  <raux 
x*t  a.iux. — Advers.  Thcosfhenem. 


(     51     ) 

himself  made  offering-  of  in  bread  and  wine;  and  thus  he, 
who  is  the  plenitude,  fulfilled  the  truth  of  the  prefigured 
image."  (Ep.  63,  ad  Cecilium.) — Conceiving-  the  show- 
bread  of  the  Temple  to  have  been  also  a  preflguration  of 
the  Eucharist,  St.  Jerome  says,  "  There  is  as  much  dif- 
ference betwixt  the  loaves  offered  to  God  in  the  Old 
Law  and  the  body  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  betwixt  the  shadow 
and  the  body,  betwixt  the  image  and  the  truth."  {Com- 
ment, in  Ep.  ad  Tit.) 

It  having  been  evidently  the  belief  of  the  early  or- 
thodox Christians  that  the  Eucharist  had  been  prefigured 
in  the  offerings  of  the  Old  Law,  to  assert  that  they  held 
this  sacrament  itself  to  be  typical  is  to  impute  to  them 
the  absurdity  of  saying  that  it  is  but  a  type  of  types,  a 
mere  shadow  of  shadows;* — thus  sinking  their  estimate 
of  the  importance  of  this  institution  to  even  a  lower  and 
more  evanescent  point  of  value  than  it  has  been  reduced 
to  by  modern  Sacramentarians  and  Arminians.  That  the 
very  reverse,  however,  of  all  this  was  the  case,  I  have 
just  clearly  shown ;  and  how  precious  they  held  the  as- 
surance that  in  place  of  the  types  and  shadows  of  old, 
they  had,  in  the  Sacrifice  of  the  New  Law,  a  reality  and 
a  substance, f  will  appear  from  the  language,  ever  glow- 


*  In  a  certain  sense,  and  as  far  as  it  does  not  affect  or  qualify  the 
belief  in  a  Real  Presence,  the  Catholic  may  with  perfect  consistency 
apply  the  words  Figure  or  Symbol  to  the  Eucharist,  seeing  that  every 
sacrament,  as  such,  must  be  an  outward  sign,  and  consequently  a 
Figure  or  Symbol.  In  this  sense  it  is  that  Pascal  understands  the 
terms  in  question,  used  by  the  Fathers;  and  as  the  view  taken  by 
so  great  a  man  of  an  article  of  faith  so  disputed  cannot  but  be  interest- 
ing, I  shall  here  transcribe  his  own  characteristically  clear  words  : — 
11  Nous  croyons  que  la  substance  du  pain  etant  changee  en  relle  du 
corps  de  notre  Seigneur  Jesus  Christ,  il  est  present  reellement  au  Saint 
Sacrement.  Voila  une  des  verites.  Une  autre  est  que  ce  Sicrement 
est  aussi  une  figure  d«  la  croix  et  de  la  gloire,  et  une  commemoration 
des  deux.  Voila  la  foi  Catholique,  qui  comprend  ces  deux  verites  qui 
semblent  opposees. 

"  L'heresie  d'aujourd'hui,  ne  concevant  pas  que  ce  Sacrement  con- 
tient  tout  ensemble,  et  la  presence  de  Jesus  Christ  et  sa  figure,  et  qu'ii 
soit  Sacrifice,  et  Commemoration  de  Sacrifice,  croit  qu'on  ne  peut  ad- 
mette  Tune  de  ces  verites  sansexclure  l'autre. 

*♦  Par  cette  raison  ils  s'attachment  a  ce  point,  que  ce  Sacrement  est 
figuratif ;  et  en  cela  ils  ne  sont  pas  heretiques.  Ils  pensent  que  nous 
exclusion  cette  verite  ;  et  de  la  vient  qu'ils  nous  font  tant  d'objections 
sur  les  passages  des  Peres  qui  le  disent.  Enfin,  ils  nient  la  presence 
reelle  ;  et  en  cela  ils  sout  heretiques." — Pcnsees,  Sec.  Partie. 

|  "  We  have  an  altar,"'  says  St.  Paul,  "  whereof  they  have  no  right 
to  eat  which  serve  the  tabernacle." — And  yet  (observes  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas  on  this  passage)  tfc)se  who  served  the  tabernacle  had  the 


(     52      ) 

ing,  of  Chrysostom  on  this  subject. — Asserting  the  Eu- 
charist to  be  the  accomplishment  of  the  typical  Passover, 
he  says,  "  How  much  greater  holiness  becomes  thee,  oh ! 
Christian,  who  hast  received  greater  symbols  than  the 
Holy  of  Holies  contained; — for  you  have  not  the  Cherubim, 
but  the  Lord  of  the  Cherubim  dwelling  in  you ; — you  have 
not  the  Urn,  and  the  Manna,  and  the  Tables  of  Stone, 
and  the  Rod  of  Aaron,  but  the  body  and  blood  of  our 
Lord."  (In  Psalm  133.)  Again,  Horn.  46,  he  says— "  This 
blood,  even  in  the  type,  washed  away  sin.  If  it  had  so 
great  power  in  the  type, — if  Death  were  so  affrighted  by 
the  shadow,  tell  how  it  must  be  affrighted  at  the  Verity 
itself.  Truly  tremendous  are  the  mysteries  of  the  Church; 
truly  tremendous  are  our  altars!" 

The  truth  is,  that  the  use  of  the  words  Type,  Figure, 
Sign,  &c,  as  applied  to  the  Eucharist,  is  to  be  found 
neither  in  the  Scriptures,  nor  in  any  of  the  pure  Chris- 
tian writers  of  the  first  two  centuries.  In  the  Scriptures, 
the  Eucharistic  elements  are  usually  denoted  by  the  words 
"body"  and  "  blood;"  and  the  same  unqualified  and  un- 
evasive  language  descended  from  the  Apostles  to  their 
immediate  successors  in  the  Church ;  among  whom,  "  to 
offer,"  to  receive,"  "  to  eat  and  drink  the  body  and  blood 
of  Christ,"  were  as  familiar  phrases  as  "to  receive  the 
Sacrament,"  or  "  to  administer  the  Communion "  are 
among  ourselves. 

With  Tertullian  may  be  said  to  have  commenced  that 
change  in  the  public  language  of  the  Fathers  on  this  sub- 
ject,— that  circumlocution,  and,  not  unfrequently,  am- 
biguity, in  their  notices  of  this  mystery, — of  which  before 
there  had  been  no  example,  and  of  which  the  Protestants 
have,  in  their  despair,  taken  advantage  as  affording  some 
shadow  of  plausibility  to  their  argume-nts  against  the  true 
Catholic  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist.  The  system  of  secrecy 
to  which  such  ambiguities,  and,  as  it  would  seem,  incon- 


figure  of  Jesus  Christ  in  their  Sacrifices.  Where,  then,  would  be  the 
advantage  that  the  Law  of  Grace  professes  to  have  over  the  Syna- 
gogue ?  If  the  Manna  of  the  desert  and  the  Eucharist  are  both  alike 
but  the  image  of  his  body,  wherefore  does  the  Saviour  mark  out  that 
essential  difference  between  them  that  the  former  was  but  a  food 
miraculously  formed  in  the  air  which  save  not  life,  while  the  latter  is 
"  the  bread  which  comet h  from  heaven,"  and  which  if  any  man  eat  of, 
M  he  shall  live  for  ever."  (John,  xi.)—Sce  Conferences  sur  les  Mystery 
torn.  2.  p.  279. 


(     53     ) 

sistencics  in  these  holy  writers  may  be  traced,  forms  too 
remarkable  a  feature  in  the  annals  of  the  early  Church, 
and  is,  indeed,  too  closely  connected  with  the  history  of 
this  and  other  Christian  doctrines,  to  be  dismissed  with- 
out receiving  some  farther  consideration. 


CHAPTER  XL 


Discipline  of  the  Secret.— Concealment  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Real 
Presence.— St.  Paul.— St.  Clement  of  Alexandria. — Apostolical  Con- 
stitutions.—System  of  secrecy,  when  most  observed. 


The  system  to  which  I  have  referred,  at  the  close  of  the 
preceding  chapter,  as  being-  the  principal  cause  of  that 
restraint  and  ambiguity  which  are  observable  in  the 
language  of  some  of  the  Fathers  concerning  the  Eucharist, 
is  well  known  among  the  learned  by  the  name  of  the 
Discipline  of  the  Secret,  and  by  many  is  supposed  to  have 
been  of  apostolic  origin.  Among  those  alleged  imitations 
of  the  religious  policy  of  the  Pagans  with  which  the 
Primitive  Christians  and  the  Papists  have  alike  been  re- 
proached, one  of  the  most  striking,  as  regards  the  former, 
is  that  distinction  drawn  in  the  early  Church  between 
the  initiated  and  the  non-initiated, — or,  in  other  words,  the 
baptized  and  the  unbaptized, — and  the  sacred  care  with 
which  the  latter  of  those  two  classes  were  excluded  from 
all  knowledge  of  those  more  recondite  and  awful  doc- 
trines of  the  faith,  in  which  (to  use  the  language  of  the 
Apostle)  "  the  wisdom  of  God  in  a  mystery  "  lies  con- 
cealed. 

In  like  manner,  too,  as  among  the  Heathen  Initiations, 
there  were  certain  stages  through  which  the  candidate 
had  to  pass,  not  only  for  the  purposes  of  discipline  and 
instruction,  but  to  stimulate  also  his  ardour  in  the  pursuit, 
before  he  arrived  at  the  full  and  crowning  close  of  his 
task,  so  in  these  Mysteries  of  the  Church,  and  declaredly 
for  the  same  reasons,  a  series  of  gradations  was  established 
through  which  the  Catechumens  and  Penitents  were 

a* 


(     54     ) 

obliged  slowly  to  advance  to  that  highest  station  where 
they  were  at  length  thought  worthy  of  being  initiated 
into  the  Faith,  and  the  great  Mystery,  the  Eucharist, 
was  for  the  first  time  communicated  to  them.  Till  this 
period,  not  only  were  the  Catechumens  prohibited  from 
being  present  at  the  celebration  of  that  Sacrament,  but 
ail  notion  of  its  nature  was  carefully  withheld  from  them, 
nor  was  it  ever  suffered  to  be  mentioned,  except  ob- 
scurely, in  their  presence. 

The  chief  object  of  all  this  secrecy  was  to  guard  from 
the  profaning  scoffs  of  the  infidel  such  doctrines  as  the 
ear  of  Faith  was  alone  worthy  to  listen  to ;  and  the  au- 
thority alleged  for  its  adoption  was  no  less  sacred  a  one 
than  the  injunction  of  Christ  himself: — "Place  not  holy 
things  before  dogs,  nor  pearls  before  swine."  That  the 
Apostles,  in  their  capacity  of  "  Stewards  of  the  Mysteries 
of  God,"  observed  a  similar  rule  of  secrecy  was  the  cur- 
rent opinion  of  the  Fathers ;  and  the  words  of  St.  Paul 
(1  Cor.  iii.  1,  2.)  are  often  adduced  by  them  to  prove  that 
already,  in  his  time,  this  distinction  between  the  Cate- 
chumens and  the  Faithful  was  in  force,  "  And  I,  breth- 
ren, could  not  speak  unto  you  as  unto  spiritual,  but  as 
unto  carnal  persons,  even  as  unto  babes  in  Christ.  I 
haye  fed  you  with  milk  and  not  with  meat,  for  hitherto 
ye  were  not  able  to  bear  it;  neither  yet  now  are  ye 
able," 

"  If,  therefore  (says  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria,  in  com- 
menting on  this  passage,)  Milk  be  said  by  the  Apostle  to 
belong  to  babes,  and  Meat  to  them  that  are  perfect,  Milk 
will  be  understood  to  be  Catechizing,  as  the  first  kind  of 
food  of  the  soul,  but  Meat  the  concealed  Theories."  How 
strongly  St.  Jerome  also  was  of  opinion  that  St.  Paul 
acted  upon  this  principle  appears  from  his  reply  to  his 
friend  Evagrius,  who  had  consulted  him  respecting  the 
meaning  of  an  obscure  passage  of  the  Apostle  with  re- 
gard to  the  sacrifice  of  Melchisedek : — "  You  are  not  to 
suppose  (says  St.  Jerome)  that  Paul  could  not  easily  have 
explained  himself;  but  the  time  was  not  come  for  such 
explanation.  He  sought  to  persuade  the  Jews,  and  not 
the  Faithful,  to  whom  the  mystery  might  have  been  de- 
livered without  reserve." 

Did  the  curious  Collection,  known  by  the  name  of  the 
Apostolical  Constitutions,  possess  any  such  claim  to  a 


(     55     ) 

rank  among  scriptural  writings  as  Whiston  labours  to  es- 
tablish for  it,  the  apostolic  origin  of  the  Discipline  of  the 
Secret  could  be  no  longer  doubtful ; — these  Constitutions 
having  been  professedly  collected,  under  such  a  law  of 
secrecy,  by  the  fellow-labourer  of  St.  Paul,  Clement,  as 
he  is  himself  thus  made  to  declare : — "  The  Constitutions, 
dedicated  to  you,  the  Bishops,  by  me,  Clement,  in  Eight 
Books; — which  it  is  not  fitting  to  publish  before  all,  be- 
cause of  the  Mysteries  contained  in  them." 

But,  though  the  authenticity  claimed  by  Whiston,  with 
such  profuse  waste  of  learning,  for  this  book,  be  now  ge- 
nerally disallowed,  the  work  still  furnishes  a  proof  that, 
in  the  third  or  fourth  century,  when  it  was  fabricated,  a 
belief  prevailed  that  those  unwritten  traditions  and  doc- 
trines over  which  the  Church  drew  a  veil  of  silence  had 
descended  to  her,  under  the  same  religious  law  of  secre- 
cy, from  the  Apostles  themselves.  "  We  receive,"  says 
£>t.  Basil,  "  the  dogmas  transmitted  to  us  by  writing,  and 
those  which  have  descended  to  us  from  the  Apostles,  be- 
neath the  veil  and  mystery  of  oral  tradition 

The  Apostles  and  Fathers  who  prescribed  from  the  be- 
ginning certain  rites  to  the  Church,  knew  how  to  pre- 
serve the  dignity  of  the  Mysteries  by  the  secrecy  and  si- 
lence in  which  they  enveloped  them.  For  what  is  open 
to  the  ear  and  the  eye  is  no  longer  mysterious.  For  this 
reason  several  things  have  been  handed  down  to  us  with- 
out writing,  lest  the  vulgar,  too  familiar  with  our  dogmas, 
should  pass  from  being  accustomed  to  them  to  the  con- 
tempt of  them." — De  Spirit.  Sanct.  c.  27. 

Upon  the  controversy  which  is  known  to  have  been 
maintained  among  the  learned  as  to  the  precise  time 
when  the  Discipline  of  the  Secret  was  first  introduced 
into  the  Church,  it  is  not  my  intention  here  to  dwell. — 
Some,  as  we  have  seen,  trace  its  origin  as  far  back  as  the 
time  of  jthe  Apostles,*  while  others  suppose  it  to  have 
been  first  practised  towards  the  close  of  the  second  cen- 
tury, and  others,  again,  contrary  to  all  authority,  date  its 
commencement  so  low  down  as  the  fourth.  The  truth 
seems  to  be  that  the  principle  of  this  policy  was  acted 


*  Among  moderns,  Schelstrate  has  contended  most  strenuously  for 
the  apostolic  origin  of  the  Secret,  while,  in  opposition  to  him,  Tent- 
zeiius  and  others  refer  its  rise  to  about  the  close  of  the  second  century, 


(     56     ) 

upon,  in  the  Christian  Church,  from  its  very  beginning. 
So  strongly  has  not  only  St.  Paul,  but  our  Saviour  him- 
self, inculcated  a  sacred  reserve  in  promulgating  the 
Mysteries  of  the  Faith,  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  the 
succeeding  teachers  of  the  Church  would,  in  this,  as  in 
all  things  else,  follow  their  Divine  Master's  precept. 

But  though,  as  a  principle,  this  reverential  guard  over 
the  Mysteries  was  observed,  doubtless,  from  the  very  first 
rise  of  Christianity,  it  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
strictly  enforced,  as  a  rule  of  discipline,  till  about  the 
close  of  the  second  century.  The  curiosity,  and,  still 
more,  the  bitter  enmity  excited  by  the  rapid  spread  of  a 
religion  founded  wholly,  as  it  appeared,  on  mysteries, 
but  whose  progress  was,  in  unbelieving  eyes,  the  greatest 
mystery  of  all,  rendered  increased  caution  necessary  on 
the  part  of  its  ministers;  and  the  divine  precept  by  which 
they  were  enjoined  to  hide  the  "  holy  things "  of  the 
Faith  from  unbelievers,  began,  about  this  time,  to  be 
acted  upon  by  them  with  a  degree  of  jealous  strictness 
proportionate  to  the  prying  insolence  and  violence  by 
which  they  were  encompassed. 


"■*  M*f  ©  ^^  ©4^*^"** 


CHAPTER  XII. 


Doctrine  of  the  Trinity.— St.  Justin.— Irenxus.— Apparent  heterodoxy 
of  the  Fathers  of  the  Third  Century. — Accounted  for  by  the  Disci- 
pline of  the  Secret. — Tertullian,  Origen,  Lactantius,  &c. 

It  has  been  asserted  by  more  than  one  learned  writer, 
that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  not  included  among 
the  mysteries  to  which  the  protection  of  this  rule  of  se- 
crecy was  extended.*     But  such  an  assumption  is  not 

*  In  defiance,  as  it  appears  to  me,  of  all  evidence,  it  has  been  main- 
tained by  Tentzelius,  Casaubon  and  others,  that  it  was  neither  the 
Trinity,  nor  any  of  the  other  dogmas  of  the  Faith,  but  merely  the  rites 
and  ceremonies  of  the  two  Sacraments  of  Baptism  and  the  Eucharist 
that  were  intended  to  be  concealed  from  the  non-initiated  by  the  ob- 
servance of  this  Discipline. 


(     57     ) 

only  inconsistent  with  the  main  objects  for  which  such  a 
rule  was  established,  but  is  also,  as  it  will  not  be  difficult 
to  show,  at  variance  with  fact.  It  was,  indeed,  the  pious 
horror  of  exposing*  such  high  mysteries  as  that  of  the 
Trinity  to  the  scoffs  and,  what  was  still  worse,  the  mis- 
representations of  the  Gentiles,  that  formed  the  chief  mo- 
tive of  the  Christian  Pastors  for  the  policy  which  they 
adopted, — a  policy  which,  on  some  points  (such  as  that  of 
the  Seven  Sacraments,*)  is  supposed  to  have  led  them  to 
preserve  an  unbroken  silence,  but  which,  for  the  most  part, 
consisted  in  holding  such  language  respecting  any  mys- 
tery they  had  to  mention  before  unbelievers,  as  was,  at 
the  same  time,  transparent  enough  to  allow  the  truth  to 
shine  out  to  the  initiated,  and  yet  too  obscure  to  betray 
either  the  teacher  or  his  doctrines  to  the  profane.  In 
this  reserved  and  ambiguous  manner  do  Tertullian  and 
some  of  the  succeeding  Fathers  speak  of  the  Eucharist ; 
and  still  more  evasively,  from  the  same  cause,  have  al- 
most all  the  Fathers  of  the  first  three  centuries  and  a  half 
spoken  of  the  Trinity. 

This  latter  fact  I  am,  in  a  peculiar  degree,  anxious  to 
impress  on  the  reader ;  seeing  that  it  is  of  importance  to 
my  subject  to  show  that  by  an  almost  exactly  similar  fate 
has  the  progress  of  these  two  mysteries,  the  Trinity  and 
the  Real  Presence,  been  all  along  marked ;  and  that  the 
same  cause  which  produced,  in  some  of  the  early  Fathers, 
that  ambiguity  of  language,  on  the  subject  of  the  Eucha- 
rist, of  which  the  Protestants  have  availed  themselves  for 
the  support  of  their  schism,  produced  also  that  still 
greater  ambiguity  and  inconsistency  in  the  language  of 
the  same  Fathers,  respecting  the  Trinity,  which  has, 
with  a  similar  degree  of  dexterity,  been  employed,  in  fa- 
vour of  their  own  heresy,  by  the  Arians. 

I  have  already  remarked  how  much  more  free  from 

*  It  is  to  the  operation  of  the  Discipline  of  the  Secret  that  Catholic 
writers  attribute  the  entire  silence  which  they  acknowledge  has  been 
preserved,  on  the  subject  of  the  Seven  Sacraments,  in  all  the  authen- 
tic monuments  of  antiquity  that  remain  to  us.  According  to  Schel- 
strate, — one  of  those  by  whom  the  circumstance  is  thus  accounted 
for,— it  is  not  till  the  seventh  century  that  any  mention  of  the  Seven 
Sacraments  occurs  ; — "  Si  pervolvamus  omnia  antiquitatismonumen- 
ta,  s,i  perscrutemur  cuncta  antiquissimorum  Patrum  scripta,  si  inves- 
tigemus  ipsa  Synodorum  decreta,  nullum  librum,  nullum  decretum 
reperiri,  quod  ante  septimum  sseculum  egerit  de  Septem  Sacramentis, 
£Drumque  ritus  exposuerit."— Schclstraten.  J?e  Disciplin,  4rca$, 


(     68     ) 

the  restraints  of  this  singular  Discipline  were  those  wri- 
ters who  flourished  previously  to  the  close  of  the  second 
century  than  were  any  of  their  successors  for  the  next 
hundred  and  fifty  years;  and  I  need  but  mention,  in  proof 
of  this  fact,  that  the  same  illustrious  Father,  St.  Justin, 
who,  as  I  have  shown,  ventured,  in  his  Address  to  the 
Sovereign  and  Princes  of  the  Empire,  to  promulgate  the 
doctrine  of  Transubstantiation,  proclaimed  also,  in  the 
same  public  document,  the  mystic  dogma  of  the  Trinity. 

How  far  the  circumstance  of  his  not  being  an  ecclesi- 
astic may  have  rendered  this  Father  somewhat  less 
guarded  in  his  public  writings,  I  will  not  pretend  to  de- 
termine; but  it  is  plain  that  even  he  thought  it  prudent 
so  far  to  disguise  or  soften  down  some  of  the  more  sa- 
lient points  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  as  to  present 
it  to  the  minds  of  unbelievers  in  its  least  startling  shape, 
knowing  well  that  the  charge  of  Polytheism  was  lying 
in  wait  for  him,  as  well  from  Jews  as  from  Gentiles,  he 
refrains  most  cautiously,  in  his  Apology,  from  asserting 
the  co-eternity  of  the  Son  with  the  Father,  and  even,  in 
some  passages,  expressly  declares  the  inferior  nature  of 
the  former ; — "  Next  after  God,  we  adore  and  love  that 
Word  which  is  derived  from  the  ineffable  and  unbegotten 
God."  And  again,  in  speaking  of  the  Logos,  "Than 
whom  a  more  Royal  and  just  Ruler,  after  God  the  Fa~ 
ther,  we  know  not  one." 

The  charge  of  heterodoxy  which  such  language  has 
drawn  down  upon  St.  Justin  wTould  appear  not  to  be  with- 
out some  foundation,  had  we  not  the  Discipline  of  the  Se- 
cret to  account  for  it  satisfactorily,  and  did  there  not  oc- 
cur other  passages,  in  the  very  same  document,  where 
this  veil  of  reserve  is  withdrawn  and  the  true  doctrine  dis- 
closed to  the  Initiate.  Of  this  nature  is  the  following, 
showing  clearly  that  the  pure,  orthodox  belief, — that 
which  holds  the  Son  to  have  been  generated,  not  created, 
and  to  have  been  with  the  Father  from  all  eternity, — 
wTas  the  belief  delivered  to  St.  Justin,  and  by  him  taught 
to  the  baptized: — "But  his  Son,  who  alone  is  properly 
called  his  Son,  the  Word,  who  was  with  him  and  was  be- 
gotten by  him  before  the  Creatures." 

Another  writer  of  the  same  age,  Irenseus,  may  be  cited 
as  yet  more  remarkable  for  the  extent  to  which  he  has 
ventured  to  unveil  both  the  Sacrifice  in  the  Eucharist, 


(     59     ) 

and,  still  more  fully,  the  great  mystery  of  the  Eternal 
Generation  of  the  Son.  With  so  much  bolder  a  hand 
than  any  of  his  successors  has  he  laid  open  the  depths  of 
this  latter  doctrine,  that  in  him  alone  does  Whiston  allow 
that  there  can  be  found  any  sanction  for  that  high  view 
of  the  Trinity,  to  which  Whiston  himself  was  opposed; 
but  which,  however  apparently,  at  times,  "  shorn  of  its 
beams,"  has  been,  throughout  every  age  of  the  Church, 
her  unchanging  doctrine.  It  was  from  want  of  attention 
to  the  operation  of  the  Discipline  of  the  Secret  that 
Whiston  and  others  have  been  led  into  exactly  the  same 
error,  respecting  the  Trinity,  that  other  Protestant  di- 
vines have  fallen  into,  on  the  subject  of  the  Real  corporal 
Presence. 

Far  different,  indeed,  from  the  language  of  Justin  and 
Irenseus  was  that  held,  on  both  these  dogmas,  by  the 
Fathers  of  the  following  age,  when  the  system  of  secrecy 
had  begun  strictly  to  be  acted  upon,  and  when,  amidst 
the  storms  of  persecution  that  gathered  round  their  heads, 
the  ministers  of  the  Faith  found  in  this  holy  Silence  a 
protection  both  for  their  doctrines  and  themselves.  No- 
thing, in  truth,  can  show  more  strongly  the  difference 
that,  in  this  respect,  distinguished  the  two  periods,  than 
a  comparison  of  the  conduct  of  St.  Justin  with  that  of  St. 
Cyprian,  in  situations  very  nearly  similar.  The  former, 
as  we  have  seen  in  his  Defence  of  Christianity,  addressed 
to  the  Princes  of  the  Empire,  did  not  hesitate  so  far  to 
throw  open  the  sanctuary  of  the  Faith  as  to  place  before 
them  its  two  great  Arcana,  the  Trinity  and  the  Real 
Presence ;  whereas  St.  Cyprian,  when,  in  like  manner, 
called  upon  to  stand  forth  in  vindication  of  his  religion, 
ventured  no  farther,  in  his  public  Epistle  on  the  occa- 
sion, than  to  assert  the  doctrine  of  the  Unity  of  God, 
leaving  the  Trinity  and  the  mystic  Sacraments  of  the 
Church  wholly  unmentioned. 

So  cautiously,  indeed,  are  the  Christians  of  Cyprian's 
age  known  to  have  shrunk  from  all  mention  of  the  Tri- 
nity before  the  uninitiated,  that*  in  reviewing  the  Acts 
of  the  Martyr,  St.  Pontius,  the  chief  point  on  which  the 
learned  Schelstrate  rests  his  conviction  of  their  spurious- 
ness  is  their  representing  this  Martyr  as  speaking  openly 
of  the  Trinity  before  the  emperors  Philip,  while  still 
Gentiles, — a  violation  of  the  law  of  secrecy,  on  this  sub- 


(     60     ) 

ject  of  which  no  Christian  would,  at  that  time,*  have 
been  likely  to  be  guilty. 

Were  we  to  form  our  judgment  solely  on  some  de- 
tached passages  of  Tertullian,  Origen,  and  Lactantius, 
we  must  either  come  to  Winston's  conclusion,  that  the  pre- 
sent accepted  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  not  that  of  the 
primitive  Church;  or  else  suppose  that  the  truth  of  this 
divine  mystery,  having  broken  out  brightly  and  genuine- 
ly in  the  writings  of  St.  Justin  and  Irenseus,  was  again, 
for  an  interval  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  eclipsed  and 
lost.  To  give  but  an  instance  or  two  of  the  imperfect 
views,  respecting  the  relation  between  Christ  and  God, 
which  the  Fathers  of  the  third  century  suffered  to  glim- 
mer through  their  writings,  we  find  the  following  unor- 
thodox passage  in  Tertullian  on  the  subject : — "  God  was 
not  always  a  Father  or  Judge,  since  he  could  not  be  a 
Father  before  he  had  a  Son,  nor  a  Judge  before  there 
was  any  sin ;  and  there  was  a  time  when  both  sin  and 
the  Son  were  not." 

The  fear  of  drawing  upon  themselves  the  imputation 
of  Polytheism  from  the  Gentiles  appears  to  have  been 
one  of  the  chief  motives  with  these  holy  men  for  their 
reserve  respecting  the  Trinity ;  and  how  readily  disposed 
were  not  only  the  Pagans,  but  some  of  the  heretics,  to 
found  such  an  accusation  on  this  doctrine  appears  from 
the  account  given  by  Tertullian  of  the  Sabellians  of  his 
day,  whose  first  question,  as  he  tells  us,  in  meeting  any 
of  the  orthodox,  was,  "  Well,  my  friends,  do  we  believe 
in  one  God  or  three  P1  It  was  evidently  to  counteract 
such  an  impression  that  St.  Cyprian,  as  we  have  seen,  in 
his  Letter  to  the  Proconsul  of  Africa,  contented  himself 
with  solely  establishing  the  Unity  of  God ;  and  that  ano- 
ther learned  Father,  Lactantius,  about  half  a  century 
later,  thought  it  prudent  to  put  forth  the  following  decla- 
ration : — "  Our  Saviour  taught  that  there  is  but  one  God, 
and  that  he  alone  is  to  be  worshipped;  nor  did  he  ever 
say  once  himself  that  he  was  God.    For,  he  had  not  been 


*  There  occur  also  some  instances  of  the  same  strict  observance  of 
secrecy,  in  the  second  century.  Thus,  we  find.  Alexander,  the  Martyr, 
when  preaching  to  the  prisoners,  made  no  mention  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
nor  of  the  mystery  of  the  Trinity;  and  when  ordered  by  Aurelius  to 
explain  all  the  dogmai  of  his  faith,  answered  that  he  was  not  permit- 
ted by  Christ  to  place  holy  things  before  dogs. 


(     61     ) 

faithful  to  his  trust,  if,  when  he  was  sent  to  take  away 
Polytheism,  and  assert  the  Unity  of  God,  he  had  intro- 
duced another  besides  the  one  God.  This  had  been  not 
to  preach  the  doctrine  of  one  God,  nor  to  do  the  business 
of  him  that  sent  him,  but  his  own." — De  vera  Sapient. 

In  a  similar  manner,  with  the  view  of  removing  those 
prejudices  which  were  known  to  exist  against  Christi- 
anity, from  a  notion  that,  like  Paganism,  it  sanctioned 
the  worship  of  many  Gods,  we  find  Origen,  in  his  Trea- 
tise on  Prayer,  going  so  far  as  almost  to  deny  that  Christ 
is  to  be  considered  an  object  of  supplication  or  thanks- 
giving:— "But  if  we  understand  (says  this  Father)  what 
Prayer  is,  care  must  be  taken  that  no  derivative  Being 
be  the  object  of  Prayer, — no,  not  Christ  himself,  but  only 
the  God  and  Father  of  the  Universe,  to  whom  also  our 
Saviour  himself  prayed,  as  we  have  before  expounded, 
and  as  he  teaches  us  to  pray.  For,  when  one  said  to  him, 
Teach  us  to  pray,  he  does  not  teach  us  to  pray  to  himself, 
but  to  his  Father,  saying,  ■  Our  Father  which  art  in  hea- 
ven.' " 

It  is  from  attending  solely  to  passages  such  as  these 
that  not  only  calumniators  of  the  Fathers,  like  Daille  and 
Jurieu,  but  even  Catholics  of  distinguished  character, 
such  as  Petau  and  Huet,*  have  been  led  into  the  error  of 
accusing  the  teachers  of  the  early  Church  of  Arianism ; 
whereas,  a  little  more  fairness  in  some  of  the  theologians 
just  named,  and  a  little  more  industry  in  the  others, 
would  have  enabled  them  to  cite  from  writings  of  the 
very  same  Fathers, — writings  produced  under  circum- 
stances that  led  them  more  freely  to  unfold  the  mysteries 
of  their  Faith, — passages  fully  asserting  the  dogma  of 
the  Tri-une  Deity,  in  all  its  primitive,  orthodox,  and  in- 
scrutable grandeur.  Thus  Tertullian,  who,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  addressing  the  Stoic  Hermogenes,  could  so  far 
shrink  from  the  true  exposition  of  this  doctrine  as  to  de- 
clare that  there  was  a  time  when  God  was  not  a  Father, 
and  had  not  a  Son,  has  yet,  in  his  Defence  of  the  Trinity 
against  Praxeas,  given  conclusive  evidence  of  his  belief 

*  This  learned  Catholic,  in  referring  to  the  heretical  opinions  which 
are  to  be  found  in  such  passages  as  I  have  above  cited  from  the  Fa- 
thers, doubts  whether  to  impute  them  to  impiety  or  unskilfulness. 
But  the  self-imposed  restraint,  under  which  they,  at  times  wrote,  af- 
fords the  true  clew  to  all  such  difficulties. 

6 


(     62     ) 

in  the  in-dwelling  of  the  Word  with  God  from  all  eternity ; 
and  has,  moreover,  in  one  sentence,  defined  the  consub- 
stantial  union  of  the  Three  Persons  as  strictly  as  was  af- 
terwards done  by  Athanasius  himself, — calling"  it  "  Una 
substantia  in  tribus  cohffirentibus."  In  a  like  manner, 
too,  Origen,  notwithstanding  passages  such  as  I  have 
above  cited  from  him,  which  lower  our  Saviour  in  the 
scale  of  Being  to  a  rank  secondary  and  derivative,  has 
asserted  so  orthodoxly,  in  other  parts  of  his  writings,  the 
co-equality  of  the  Son,  in  Godship,  with  the  Father,  as  to 
have  drawn  from  Bishop  Bull,  the  defender  of  the  Nicene 
Anathema,  the  praise  of  perfect  orthodoxy. 

The  natural  working,  indeed,  of  the  wary  policy  which 
gave  to  these  writers  such  an  appearance  of  inconsistency, 
may  be  traced  visibly  through  the  course  of  the  writings 
of  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria,  in  some  of  the  earlier  of 
which  the  equality  of  the  Son  to  the  Father  is  expressly 
maintained  ;*  while,  in  his  subsequent  works,  whether 
yielding  to  prudence,  or  to  that  admiration  of  the  occult 
wisdom  of  the  Greeks  which  he  so  warmly  avows,  f  he 
withdraws  this  bolder  view  of  the  nature  of  the  Re- 
deemer, and  represents  him,  almost  invariably,  as  a  sub- 
ordinate and  created  Being. 

That  this  reserve  and  ambiguity  on  the  subject  of  the 
Trinity  continued  to  be  practised  to  as  late  a  period  as 
the  middle  of  the  fourth  century  appears  from  the  follow- 
ing remarkable  passage,  in  one  of  the  Catechesses  of  St. 
Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  which  is  in  itself  confirmatory  of  my 
view  of  the  whole  system : — "  ^Ye  do  not  declare  the 
Mysteries  concerning  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost 
to  a  Heathen;  nor  do  we  speak  plainly  to  the  Catechu- 
mens  about  those  Mysteries.  But  we  may  say  many 
things  often  in  an  occult  way,  that  the  Faithful  who 
know  them  may  understand  them;  and  that  those  who 
do  not  understand  them  may  not  be  hurt  thereby." 

*  His  words  are,  if  I  recollect  right.  t£ir*Shtc  ra  7r±rgi. 
*  f  In  citing  the  words  of  St.  Paul,  "We  speak  the  wisdom  of  God  in 
a  mystery,  even  the  hidden  mystery/'  Clement  remarks  that  the  Holy 
Apostle  here  observes  "  the  prophetic  and  really  ancient  concealment, 
from  whence  the  excellent  doctrines  of  the  Grecian  philosophers  were- 
derived  to  them."' 


(     63     ) 


CHAPTER  XIII 


Doctrine  of  the  Incarnation. — Importance  attached  to  it  by  Christ 
himself. — John  vi.— Ignatius. — Connexion  between  the  Incarnation 
and  the  Real  Presence. — Concealment  of  the  latter  doctrine  by  the 
Fathers. — Proofs  of  this  concealment. 


Having  dwelt  thus  long-  upon  the  influence  which  that 
rule  of  policy,  called  the  Discipline  of  the  Secret,  exer- 
cised so  manifestly  over  the  writings  of  the  Fathers  on 
the  subject  of  the  Trinity,  I  shall  now  proceed  to  show 
that  the  same  influence, — though  certainly,  in  many  in- 
stances, to  a  much  less  considerable  degree — affected  the 
public  writings  of  these  same  Fathers,  on  the  no  less  vi- 
tal and  mysterious  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist. 

It  may  be  observed  to  have  been  chiefly  round  those 
points  of  belief  on  which  the  Christians  felt  themselves 
most  exposed  to  the  charge  of  borrowing  from  the  theo- 
logy of  the  Heathens  that  they  took  the  most  especial 
care  to  throw  the  protection  of  this  sacred  silence.  Of 
this  description  was,  as  I  have  already  shown,  the  Trini- 
ty ;  arid  in  the  same  predicament,  as  doctrines  liable  to 
be  misrepresented,  were  the  great  mysteries  of  the  Son- 
ship  and  the  Incarnation;  the  former  of  which  the  philo- 
sophic Gentiles  exclaimed  against,  as  originating  in  the 
same  gross  notions  which  had  dictated  the  genealogy  of 
the  Heathen  Gods;  while,  by  such  scoffers  as  Celsus,  the 
Incarnation  of  the  EternaJ  Word  was  compared  to  those 
transformations  which  Jupiter  underwent  in  his  multifari- 
ous love-adventures.  In  truth,  the  very  first  great  point 
of  the  Christian  scheme  of  Redemption  which  Christians 
themselves,  in  the  presumptuous  exercise  of  their  judg- 
ment, dared  to  call  into  question,  was  the  Incarnation  of 
the  Redeemer.  Under  the  very  eyes  of  our  Lord  himself 
there  arose,  as  we  have  seen,  a  sect  of  heretics,*  who, 
refusing  to  believe  that  Spirit  so  pure  could  clothe  itself 
in  corrupt  flesh,  chose  rather  to  deny  his  humanity,  and 
thus,  in  fact,  nullify  his  mission  as  a  Redeemer  by  re- 

*  The  Docette.    See  page  20, 


(     64     ) 

moving  that  only  link  between  the  divine  and  human  na- 
ture through  which  a  mediation,  implying  sympathies 
with  both,  could  be  effected. 

To  obviate  the  mischiefs  of  this  heresy, — coeval,  as  it 
would  seem,  with  Christianity  itself,  and  confirm  the 
truth  of  the  manifestation  of  God  in  the  Flesh,  was,  it  is 
evident,  one  of  the  most  anxious  objects,  as  well  of  our 
Saviour  himself,  as  of  those  who  acted  under  his  autho- 
rity. Had  we  no  other  proof,  indeed,  of  the  prevalence 
of  such  an  error,  respecting  his  nature,  the  solicitude  he 
showed,  in  his  interview  with  the  Apostles  after  his  re- 
surrection, to  convince  them  of  his  corporeality,  by  making 
them  handle  his  limbs  and  by  eating  in  their  presence, 
w7ould  be  sufficient  to  prove"  both  the  doubts,  as  to  his 
humanity,  that  prevailed,  and  the  immense  importance 
which  he  himself  attached  to  their  removal :  *  Handle  me 
(he  says)  and  see ;  for  a  Spirit  hath  not  flesh  and  bones, 
as  ye  see  me  have :"  or,  as  he  is  made  to  say,  in  an  apo- 
cryphal work,  cited  by  Origen,*  "  I  am  not  an  incorpo- 
real Demon." 

In  the  First  Epistle  of  St.  John,  we  find  those  heretics 
who  denied  the  reality  of  Christ's  body  thus  denounced : 
— "  Every  spirit  that  confesseth  that  Jesus  Christ  is  come 
in  the  flesh  is  of  God ;  and  every  spirit  that  confesseth  not 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh  is  not  of  God ;  and 
this  is  that  spirit  of  Antichrist  whereof  ye  have  heard 
that  it  should  come ;  and  even  now  already  is  it  in  the 
world."  It  is,  indeed,  supposed  to  have  been  principally 
with  the  view  of  obviating  so  dangerous  an  error  that  the 
same  Apostle  wrote  his  Gospel ;  and  not  only  the  earnest- 
ness with  which  he  anathematizes  this  heresy  in  his  Epis- 
tle, but  also  the  pains  taken  by  him,  as  Evangelist,  to  as- 
sure the  world  of  the  real  death  of  Christ  and  of  the 
issuing  of  real  blood  and  water  from  his  wounded  side, 
render  such  a  view  of  his  design,  in  writing  this  sacred 
narrative,  both  natural  and  rational. 

It  is,  in  fact,  the  6th  chapter  of  his  Gospel, — that  re- 
markable chapter,  whose  testimony  to  the  marvellous  na- 
ture and  virtues  of  the  Eucharist  the  ingenuity  of  Pro- 
testant Divines  so  vainly  labours  to  explain  away, — that 
we  find  the  very  strongest  proof  of  the  vital  importance 

*  The  Doctrine  of  Peter.— Origin,  de  Princip. 


(     65     ) 

attached,  in  the  Christian  scheme,  to  the  establishment 
of  the  verity  of  Christ's  flesh  and  blood.  Nor  can  it  be 
doubted  that,  as  St.  John's  main  object,  in  this  Gospel, 
was  to  refute  and  extinguish  that  pernicious  heresy 
which,  by  denying  the  reality  of  the  flesh  of  Christ,  would 
deprive  mankind  of  the  benefits  of  his  Incarnation,  so  the 
stress  which  he  here  represents  our  Saviour  as  laying 
upon  the  ever  blessed  and  life-giving  effects  of  the  Eu- 
charist has  evidently  the  same  most  momentous  object  in 
view, — showing  emphatically  that  this  miraculous  Sacra- 
ment was,  as  it  were,  a  sequel  to  the  mystery  of  the  In- 
carnation ;  and  that  the  mighty  privileges  and  benefits 
which  the  latter  had  procured  for  mankind,  were,  by  the 
former,  to  be  perpetuated  and  commemorated  through  all 
time. 

That  such*  was  the  light  in  which  our  Saviour  himself 
represented  this  Sacrament,  in  that  memorable  discourse 
uttered  by  him  in  the  Synagogue,  at  Capernaum,  none 
but  those  who  perversely  wrest  the  word  of  God  to  their 
own  rash  judgments,  will  venture  to  deny.  "  One  princi- 
pal motive,"  says  a  learned  Protestant  writer,  "  that  mo- 
dem Divines  have  to  deny  that  John  vi.  is  to  be  taken  of 
the  Eucharist  is  this,  viz,  that  the  effects  and  conse- 
quences there  attributed  to  the  eating  and  drinking 
Christ's  flesh  and  blood  (especially  that  of  eternal  life 
and  all  evangelical  blessings  annexed  to  it)  are  too  great 
and  valuable  to  be  applied  to  the  Communion."* 

Nothing  can  be  more  just  or  candid  than  this  remark. 
Hence,  in  truth,  all  the  wretched  shifts  resorted  to  by 
Church  of  England  divinesf  for  the  purpose  of  robbing  the 

*  Johnson's  Unbloody  Sacrifice. 

t  Thus,  Dr.  Whitby,  adopting,  in  matter-of-fact  seriousness,  that 
allegorical  and  analogical  mode  of  interpretation,  which  Clement  of 
Alexandria  and  Origen  employed  to  mystify  their  hearers,  had  the 
conscience  to  maintain  that  by  the  phrases  "  eating  his  flesh"  and 
"  drinking  his  blood,"  in  John  vi.,  Christ  meant  nothing  more  than 
,;  believing  his  doctrines!"  On  this  opinion  Johnson  remarks,— "  It 
must  be  owned  that  if  our  Saviour,  by  men's  eating  his  flesh  and 
drinking  his  blood,  meant  nothing  but  so  obvious  a  thing  as  receiving 
him  and  his  doctrine  by  faith  and  obedience,  he  clothed  his  thoughts 
in  most  unnatural  language."  and  again,  "We  may  as  properly  be 
said  to  eat  and  drink  the  Trinity  by  believing  in  it  as  to  eat  the 
body  of  Christ  by  bare  faith." 

Next  came  Bishop  Hoadley,  who,  rejecting  all  application  of  John 
vi.  to  the  Eucharist  whatever,  described  the  discourse  of  our  Saviour 
in  the  Synagogue  as  "  only  a  very  high  figurative  representation  to 

6* 


(     66     ) 

Catholic  doctrine  of  the  support  of  th's  chapter,  and  ena- 
bling the  Protestant  to  sink  the  mir:  culous  character  ot 
the  Eucharist  down  to  the  "  low"  view  *  taken  of  it  by  the 
Socinians  and  Hoadleyites.  But  the  sense  of  all  the  great 
teachers  of  Christianity  is  against  them ;  and,  above  all, 
of  those  earliest  in  the  field  of  the  Faith.  The  apostoli- 
cal Ignatius,  who  had  been  the  disciple  of  him  ';  who 
wrote  these  things,"  and  had  doubtless  heard,  from  the 
holy  Penman's  own  lips,  their  true  import  and  spirit,  un- 
derstood, manifestly,  by  the  promise  of  Eternal  Life  con- 
veyed on  that  occasion,  no  vaguely  allegorical  lesson  of 
faith  or  doctrine,  but  a  clear  assurance  of  a  happy  resur- 
rection and  immortality,  to  be  derived  from  that  commu- 
nion with  the  body  of  Christ  which  is  enjoyed  by  eating 
his  flesh  and  drinking  his  blood  in  the  Eucharist.  Hence 
it  is  that  the  holy  Ignatius  speaks  of  this  Sacrament,  in 
language  which  no  other  part  of  Scripture,  but  this  Chap- 
ter of  John,  justifies; — calling  it,  on  the  strength  of  the 
privileges  and  virtues  there  annexed  to  it,  the  Medicine 
of  Immortality  and  Antidote  against  Death. 

How  perfectly  the  view  taken  of  the  Eucharist  by  the 
Catholics,  namely,  that  it  was  part  and  parcel  of  the  mys- 
tery of  the  Incarnation, — was  understood  by  the  Gnostic 
Christians  themselves,  is  evident  from  their  conduct.  For 
this  reason  was  it  that  the  Docetse  absented  themselves, 


the  Jews  then  about  him  of  their  duty  and  obligation  to  receive  to 
their  hearts  and  digest  his  whole  doctrine  as  the  food  and  life  of  their 
souls."  Dr.  Waterland,  who  disapproved  alike  of  Whitby's  doctrinal 
interpretation  and  Hoadley's  reduction  of  the  Sacrament  to  a  mere 
communicative  Feast,  is  of  opinion  that  the  Chapter  in  question  may 
be  applied  to  the  Eucharist,  but  not  interpreted  of  it ;  and  brings  for- 
ward a  theory  of  his  own  respecting  "  Spiritual  Eating  and  Drink- 
ing,'1 of  the  merits  of  which  some  judgment  may  be  formed  from  the 
fact  that,  though  disapproving  of  Whitby's  notion  of  eating  doctrines, 
he  himself  interprets  a  passage  of  St.  Paul  (Heb.  xiii.  10.)  to  mean,  eat- 
ing the  atonement! — (Review  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Eucharist,  p.  145.) 
In  order  to  get  rid,  too,  of  the  testimony  of  St.  Ignatius  to  the  true 
meaning  of  John  vi.,  Dr.  Waterland  contends  that  this  holy  man,  in 
speaking  of  his  enjoyment  of  "  the  Bread  of  Life,"  had  no  reference 
whatever  to  the  Eucharist  in  his  thoughts,  but,  being  then  about  to 
suffer  martyrdom,  was  merely  looking  forward  to  the  prospect  of  eat- 
ing of  Christ's  Flesh,  in  the  other  world!  p.  153.  Such  are  the  straits 
to  which  men  are  always  sure  to  be  driven  who  endeavour  to  make 
out  a  case  where  there  is  no  case  to  be  made. 

*  "  If  any  person  think  this  a  low  character  of  such  a  rite  instituted 
by  our  Lord  himself,  upon  so  great  and  remarkable  occasion,"  &c. 
&c— Bishop  Hoadley,  Plain  Account  of  the  Mature  and  End  of  the  Sacra- 
mint  of  the  Loxd's  Supper. 


(     67     ) 

as  we  have  seen,  from  public  worship, — not  that  the  sect, 
in  genera],  entertained  any  objection  to  the  Eucharist, 
according"  to  their  own  fantastic  and  spiritualizing  view 
of  it,  but  because  they  were  unwilling  to  sanction,  by 
joining  in  communion  with  the  orthodox,  that  belief  in 
the  reality  of  the  flesh  present  which  the  latter,  it  was 
known,  maintained. 

That  the  Fathers  regarded  this  Sacrament  in  the  same 
light, — viewing  it  not  only  as  a  continuance,  but  as  an 
^extension  of  the  Incarnation,* — a  great  abundance  of  pas- 
sages might  be  adduced  to  prove.  Thus,  for  instance,  St. 
Gregory  of  Nyssa,  draws  a  comparison  between  the  two 
JYlysteries : — "  The  body  of  Christ  (says  this  Father)  was 
by  the  inhabitation  of  the  Word  of  God  transmuted  into 
•a  divine  dignity,  and  so  I  now  believe,  that  the  bread 
sanctified  by  the  Word  of  God  is  transmuted  into  the 
body  of  the  Word  of  God.  This  bread,  as  the  Apostle 
says,  is  sanctified  by  the  Word  of  God  and  Prayer,  not  that, 
as  food,  it  passes  into  the  body,  but  that  it  is  instantly 
changed  into  the  body  of  Christ,  agreeably  to  what  he 
said,  This  is  my  Body.  And  therefore  does  the  Divine 
Word  commix  itself  with  the  weak  nature  of  man,  that,  by 
partaking  of  the  divinity,  our  humanity  may  be  exalted." 
In  like  manner,  we  find  St.  Ambrose  pointing  out  the  same 
analogy  between  the  deified  flesh  and  the  deified  bread.  Af- 
ter asserting  the  dogma  of  Transubstantiation  in  its  highest 
Catholic  sense,  he  proceeds, — "  We  will  now  examine  the 
truth  of  the  mystery  from  the  example  itself  of  the  Incarna 
tion.  Was  the  order  of  nature  followed,  when  Jesus  was 
born  of  a  virgin]  Plainly  not.  Then  why  is  that  order  to  be 
looked  for  here  V9  Many  other  passages,  to  the  same  pur- 
port, might  be  adduced  from  the  Fathers:  but  it  is  need- 
jess  to  multiply  citations.  The  very  view  taken  by  the 
early  Christians  of  the  miraculous  change  of  the  elements 
implies  that  they  considered  the  Eucharist  as  a  kindred 
mystery  with  that  of  the  Incarnation; — as  the  wonderful 

*  By  calling  the  Eucharist  an  extension  of  the  Incarnation,  they 
meant  that  while,  in  the  latter  mystery,  Christ  but  joined  himself  to 
one  individual  nature,  and  to  no  one  person,  in  the  former  he  joins  him- 
self not  only  to  all  individual  natures,  but  also  to  their  very  persons. 
41  Earn  quam  idcirco  Patres  Incarnationis  extensionem  appellarunt.  In 
illaenim  uni  individual  naturae  sese  adjunxit,  nulli  persons;  at  in 
ista  se  singulis  individuis,  imoetiam  personis  adjunxit." — DeLingin> 
des  Condones  de  Sanctissimo  Eucharistia  Sacramento, 


(     68     ) 

means,  in  short,  by  which  Christ  perpetually  renews  his 
incarnate  presence  upon  earth,  and  continues  to  feed  hi3 
creatures  with  the  same  flesh  by  which  he  redeemed 
them. 


—  »»©@©<4««— 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

Concealment  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Eucharist. — Proofs.— Calumnies 
on  the  Christians.— Protestant  view  of  this  Sacrament— not  that 
taken  by  the  early  Christians. 

When  so  great,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the  solicitude 
and  watchfulness  with  which  the  Church  screened  from 
the  eyes  of  the  profane  all  her  other  great  dogmas,  with 
no  less  jealous  care  would  she  conceal,  or,  at  least,  soften 
down,  through  the  medium  of  enigmatic  language,  a  doc- 
trine so  mysterious  and  astounding  as  that  of  the  Real 
Presence, — the  test  most  trying  of  all  (next,  perhaps,  to 
the  Trinity)  of  that  implicit  faith,  by  which,  as  by  its 
sheet-anchor,  the  -whole  Christian  scheme  of  salvation 
holds.  Accordingly,  we  are  not  only  expressly  told  that  this 
dogma  was  among  the  most  hidden  deposites  of  the  Secret, 
but  the  language  employed  by  the  few  Fathers,  who,  in 
the  third  age,  ventured  to  allude  to  it,  shows  with  what 
sensitive  caution  they  shrunk  from  any  disclosure  of  its 
true  nature.  Thus  Origen  talks  mysteriously  and  vaguely 
of  "  eating  the  offered  breads,  which  by  prayers  are  made 
a  certain  holy  body"  St.  Cyprian,  too,  in  relating,  with 
an  awe  that  betrays  his  real  belief,  the  miraculous  cir- 
cumstance of  a  warning  having  been  given  to  some  pro- 
faner  of  the  Sacrament  by  a  flame  bursting  forth  from  the 
box  that  held  the  consecrated  bread,  describes  the  box 
thus  signalized,  as  "  containing  the  Holy  Thing  of  the 
Lord." 

Nothing,  indeed,  could  show  more  strikingly  both  how 
awful  were  the  associations  with  which  they  invested 
this  mystery  themselves,  and  how  jealous  was  their  fear 
lest  it  should  become  known  to  the  infidel,  than  the  lan- 
guage of  another  Father  of  this  time,  Tertullian,  who,  in 


(     69     ) 

representing  to  his  wife  the  consequences  of  her  marry- 
ing a  Pagan  after  his  death,  says, — "  You  would,  by  mar- 
rying an  infidel,  thereby  fall  into  this  fault,  that  the  Pa- 
gans would  come  to  the  knowledge  of  our  mysteries. 
Will  not  your  husband  know  what  you  taste  in  secret, 
before  any  other  food;  and,  if  he  perceives  bread,  will  he 
not  image  that  it  is  what  is  so  much  spoken  of!" — Ad 
Uxorum,  lib.  ii.  c.  5.  In  the  following  century  we  find 
St.  Basil  alluding  covertly  to  the  Eucharist  as  "  the  Com- 
munion of  the  Good  Thing;"  and  Epiphanius,  when 
obliged  to  describe  before  uninitiated  hearers,  the  Insti- 
tution of  this  Sacrament,  thus  slurs  over  the  particulars 
of  that  astounding  event:  "  We  see  that  our  Lord  took  a 
thing  in  his  hands,  as  we  read  in  the  Gospel,  that  he  rose 
from  table,  that  he  resumed  the  things,  and  having  given 
thanks,  he  said,  this  is  my  somewhat." 

Even  St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  by  whom  the  great  mira- 
cle of  the  Metastoicheiosis,  or  Transubstantiation,  is  put 
forth  more  boldly  and  definitely  than  by  almost  any  of  his 
predecessors,  yet,  in  one  of  his  most  explicit  passages  on 
the  subject,  and  in  a  writing  too,  intended  expressly  for  the 
initiated,  stops  short,  as  if  awe-struck,  when  about  to  men- 
tion the  word  "  body,"  and  leaves  to  the  minds  of  his  hear- 
ers to  fill  up  the  blank. — "  These  things  he  gives  us  by 
virtue  of  the  blessing,  changing  the  nature  of  the  visible 
things  into — that." 

There  can  hardly,  perhaps,  be  a  better  proof  of  the  ex- 
treme secrecy  with  which  this  mystery  was  guarded  than 
that  Arnobius,  who  was  but  a  Catechumen  when  he 
wrote  upon  Christianity,  had  been  kept  in  such  ignorance 
of  the  use  made  of  wine  in  this  rite,  that  in  a  passage 
where  he  reproaches,  if  I  recollect  right,  the  Pagans, 
with  their  libations  to  the  Deities,  he  tauntingly  demands 
of  them,  "What  has  God  to  do  with  wineTf 

Still  enough,  notwithstanding  this  system  of  reserve 
and  secrecy,  had  transpired  respecting  the  Christian  doc- 
trine of  the  Eucharist,  to  set  the  imagination  and  male- 
volence of  unbelievers  at  work.  Indistinct  notions  of 
dark,  forbidden  Feasts,  where,  it  was  said,  flesh  and  blood 
were  served  up  to  the  guests,  became  magnified  by  the 
fancies  of  the  credulous  into  the  most  monstrous  fictions. 

*  "  Quid  Deo  cum  vino  est?" 


(     ™     ) 

Stories  were  told  and  believed  of  the  dreadful  rites  prac- 
tised by  the  Christians  in  their  Initiations ; — of  an  infant 
covered  with  paste,  being  set  before  the  new  comer,  on 
which  he  was  required  to  inflict  the  first  murderous  stab, 
and  then  partake  of  its  flesh  and  blood  with  the  rest,  as 
their  common  pledge  of  secrecy.  It  is  not  difficult,  of 
course,  to  see,  through  all  this  disfigurement  of  calumny, 
the  true  doctrine  of  which  the  profane  had  caught  these 
perverting  glimpses. 

By  such  monstrous  imputations  was  it  that  some  of  the 
most  cruel  persecutions  of  the  Christians  were  provoked 
and  justified  ;  and  yet  no  power  of  cruelty,  not  the  ago- 
nies of  death  itself,  could  wrest  their  secret  from  them. 
Had  they  seen  nothing  more  in  this  sacrament  than  a 
simple  type  or  memorial,  such  as  the  Arminian  and  Soci- 
nian  consider  it,  they  had  but  to  say  so,  and  not  only  per- 
secution would  have  been  thus  foiled  of  its  prey,  but, 
what  was  of  still  dearer  import  to  them,  their  creed 
would  have  won  more  ready  acceptance.  But  no: — far 
more  "hard  to  be  understood"  was  the  secret  object  of 
their  worship ;  and,  when  asked,  as  they  were  frequently 
by  the  Pagans,  "  Why  conceal  what  you  adore  ?"  their 
answer  might  have  been,  with  truth,  "  Because  we  adore 
it."  They  saw,  as  the  Catholics  see  to  this  day,  what  in- 
sulting profanation  such  doctrine  is,  in  the  hands  of  the 
incredulous,  exposed  to;  in  what  mire  of  ridicule  and 
blasphemy  their  "holy  things"  would  be  rolled;  and,  ac- 
cordingly, even  when  threatened  with  torments  to  extort 
from  them  their  secret,  they  saw  but  one  duty  before 
them — to  be  silent,  and  die. 

Had  Christian  antiquity  bequeathed  to  us,  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  Eucharist,  no  other  evidence  than  this  solemn 
and  significant  silence, — had  we  not  also  the  ancient  Li- 
turgies of  the  Church,  and  the  catechetical  writings  of 
her  Fathers,  to  bear  ample  testimony  to  the  Catholic  doc- 
trine, on  this  point, — there  still  would  have  been,  in  this 
very  mystery  and  silence,  abundant  evidence  to  convince 
any  reasoning  mind,  that  the  Protestant  notion  of  the  Eu- 
charist could  not  have  been  that  entertained  by  the  Pri- 
mitive Christians.  The  simple  history,  in  short,  of  this 
doctrine's  reception  and  progress,  through  all  its  earlier 
stages,  would  be  more  than  sufficient  for  such  a  pur- 
pose.    For,  to  maintain  that  a  mystery  which,  on  its  first 


(     71     ) 

promulgation,  startled  our  Lord's  disciples  themselves,— 
which  the  Gnostic  heretics  of  the  first  age  shrunk  from,  as 
involving  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation, — which  the  Pa- 
gans, from  some  indistinct  glimpses  of  its  real  nature,  re- 
presented as  a  murderous  repast,  a  feast  of  "  abominable 
meats," — which  by  the  Priests  themselves  who  admi- 
nistered it  was  seldom  spoken  of  but  as  a  "  tremendous 
mystery,"  one  to  be  guarded  from  the  eyes  of  the  infidel, 
at  the  price  of  life  itself, — to  assert,  that  the  dread  object 
of  all  this  concealment  and  worship,  this  amazement,  hor- 
ror, adoration,  alarm,  was  nothing  more  than  a  simple 
sign  or  memorial,  a  mere  representation  of  our  Saviour's 
body  and  blood  under  the  symbols  of  bread  and  wine,  a 
sacramental  food  in  which  Christ's  presence  is  figurative, 
not  real,  and  to  which,  therefore,  consisting  as  it  does  of 
mere  bread  and  wine,  to  offer  up  any  adoration  is  an  act 
of  idolatry, — to  expect  to  have  it  believed,  for  a  moment, 
by  any  one  who  has  at  all  inquired  into  the  subject,  that 
such  and  no  more  was  the  sense  attached  to  this  divine 
ordinance  by  the  first  Christians,  is,  on  the  part  of  the 
Protestants,  I  must  say,  a  most  gross  and  wholesale  de- 
mand of  that  implicit  faith,  from  others,  of  which  they 
are  so  perilously  sparing  themselves. 

When  again,  too,  after  contemplating  all  those  awful 
circumstances  which  marked  the  reception  and  obser- 
vance of  this  rite  among  mankind,  we  look  back  to  the 
stupendous  occasion  on  which  it  was  first  instituted; 
when  we  recollect  the  dreadful  denunciations  of  the  Apos- 
tle against  such  as,  by  irreverence  to  this  Sacrament,  are 
"guilty  of  the  body  and  blood  of  the  Lord,"  and  remem- 
ber that  some,  among  the  Corinthians,  who  "  discerned 
not  the  Lord's  body,"  were  smitten  by  God  with  diseases 
and  death,* — we  cannot  but  marvel  at  the  responsibility 
those  Christians  take  upon  themselves,  who  venture  to 
cast  off  the  ancient  Faith,  upon  this  most  vital  of  its  doc- 
trines; who,  first,  refining  away  our  Saviour's  solemn 
declaration  on  the  subject,!  dispose,  in  the  same  manner, 

*  1  Corinth,  xi.  30. 

t  As  the  Reformer,  Zuinglius,  took  the  liberty  of  altering  Christ's 
language,  and  reads,  "  This  signifies  my  body,"  so  Bishop  Hoadley,  in 
like  manner,  presumes  to  supply  a  word  which  he  thinks  wanting,  and 
makes  it  '-This  /  call  my  body."  It  is  remarkable  enough,  indeed, 
that  Protestants  who  are  so  much  for  referring  to  the  language  of 
Scripture,  on  every  occasion,  should  yet,  in  this  important  instanee, 


(     «     ) 

of  the  Apostle's  comment  upon  that  text;  and,  in  the 
very  face  of  his  denouncements  against  those  who  "  dis- 
cern not  the  Lord's  body"  in  this  Sacrament,  venture  de- 
liberately to  deny  that  the  Lord's  body  is  there ! 


-~*>>e©®«« 


CHAPTER  XV. 


Concealment  of  the  Eucharist— most  strict  in  Third  Century.— St.  Cy^ 
prian — his  timidity— favourite  Saint  of  the  Protestants. — Alleged 
proofs-  against  Transubstantiation. — Theodoret. — Gelasius. — Belie' 
vers  in  the  Catholic  Doctrine  of  the  Eucharist,  Erasmus,  Pascal,  Sir 
Thomas  More,  Fenelon,  Leibnitz,  Sec. 

From  what  I  have  said,  in  the  preceding  Chapter,  of 
the  system  of  mystery  and  restraint  which  the  Fathers  of 
the  third  and  fourth  centuries,  hut  more  particularly  of 
the  former,  thought  it  politic  to  impose  upon  themselves 
in  speaking  of  the  Eucharist,  it  will  not  be  deemed  won- 
derful that  there  should  occur  passages  in  their  public 
writings  and  discourses,  which,  being  intended  by  them 
to  be  ambiguous,  have  fully  attained  that  object ;  and  that, 
designed  originally  as  such  passages  were  to  veil  the 
truth  from  the  unbeliever  and  the  heretic,  they  should, 
to  eyes  wilfully  blind,  still  perform  the  same  office.  The 
only  wonder,  indeed,  is,  taking  all  the  circumstances  we 
have  here  reviewed  into  consideration,  that  the  number 
of  passages  affording  this  sort  of  handle  to  misapprehen- 
sion should  have  been  so  inconsiderable;  and  that,  not- 
withstanding all  the  fastidious  caution  of  the  Fathers,  on 
this  subject,  such  a  mass  of  explicit  evidence  should  still 
be  found  in  their  writings ; — evidence  so  abundant  and 
convincing  as,  w7ith  any  unbiassed  mind,  to  place  the  truth 

question  its  most  express  and  simple  declaration,— a  declaration  re- 
peated, in  almost  exactly  the  same  words  by  three  of  the  Evangelists, 
as  well  as  by  St.  Paul,  and  explained,  exactly  in  the  same  sense,  by 
our  Saviour,  in  the  discourse  reported  by  St.  John.  "  Unam  perpetuo 
says  an  obscure,  but  sensible  writer)  Scripturam  clamitant ;  set  ubi- 
ventum  est  ad  earn,  auditis  quomodo  legant.  Tarn  aperta  sunt  verba; 
in  omnibus  Evangelistis  sunt  eadem.  Omnia  tamen  perrertunt,  om- 
nia ad  haeresim  suum  trahunt." 


(     73     ) 

of  the  Catholic  doctrine,  respecting  the  Eucharist,  beyond 
all  question. 

It  was  in  the  third  century,  when  the  followers  of 
Christ  were  most  severely  tried  by  the  fires  of  persecu- 
tion, that  the  discipline  of  secrecy,  with  respect  to  this 
and  the  other  mysteries,  was  most  strictly  observed.  "  A 
faithful  concealment,"  says  Tertullian,  "  is  due  to  all 
mysteries  from  the  very  nature  and  constitution  of  them, 
How  much  more  must  it  be  due  to  such  mysteries  as,  if 
they  were  once  discovered,  could  not  escape  immediate 
punishment  from  the  hand  of  man" — (Ad  Nation.  L.  1.) 
It  may  be  conceived  with  what  peculiar  force  such  a  mo- 
tive to  secrecy  would  be  likely  to  act  upon  minds  natu- 
rally timid, — such  as  that  of  St.  Cyprian,  for  instance, 
whose  indisposition  to  martyrdom,  however  firmly  he  at 
last  met  it,  when  inevitable,  was  evinced  on  more  than 
one  occasion  when  he  prudently  withdrew  himself  from 
its  grasp.  We  find,  accordingly,  in  conformity  with  this 
timidity  of  character,  that,  among  the  observers  of  the 
Discipline  of  the  Secret,  he  is  allowed  to  have  been  one 
of  the  most  circumspect  and  close. 

It  is,  indeed,  curious,  not  only  as  illustrative  of  the  cha- 
racter of  the  individual,  but  as  part  of  that  kindred  desti- 
ny which  seems  to  have  attended,  throughout,  the  two 
Catholic  dogmas  of  the  Trinity  and  the  Real  Presence, 
that  the  same  cautious  St.  Cyprian  who,  in  his  public  let- 
ter to  the  Proconsul  of  Africa,  thought  it  prudent  to  keep 
the  Trinity  entirely  out  of  sight,  should  have  been  also 
the  individual  who,  by  his  evasive  language,  concerning 
the  Eucharist,  has  been  the  means  of  furnishing  the  op- 
ponents of  a  real,  corporal  Presence  with  almost  the  only 
semblance  of  plausible  authority  by  which  they  support 
their  heresy.*  Little  did  he  think,  good  Saint,  that  a 
day  would  come,  when  this  prudence  or  timidity,  would 
be  made  to  pass  for  orthodoxy,  and  when, — sturdy  a  stick- 
ler as  he  was  for  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman  See, — he 
should  attain  the  eminence,  such  as  it  is,  of  being  the 
prime  Saint  of  Protestants  I 

*  Even  St.  Cyprian,  however,  couTd  not  help,  on  occasion,  letting 
the  doctrine  escape.  Thus  he  says  that,  in  the  Eucharist,  "  we  touch 
Christ's  body  and  drink  his  blood;"  and,  in  an  Epistle  to  Pope  Corne- 
lius, speaking  of  the  victims  of  persecution,  he  says,  "  How  shall  we 
teach  them  to  shed  their  blood  for  Christ,  if,  before  they  go  to  battle, 
we  do  not  give  them  his  blood  ?" 

7 


(  *4  ) 

It  would  be  amusing, — were  not  so  awful  a  point  of 
faith  the  subject  of  such  trifling. — to  observe  the  self- 
complacent  triumph  with  which  a  Protestant  controvert- 
ist  sits  brooding  over  one  of  these  intentionally  unmean- 
ing passages  of  the  Fathers,  hatching  it  into  an  argu- 
ment. It  matters  not  that  the  holy  writer  from  whom 
the  passage  is  extracted  has,  in  a  hundred  others,  preg- 
nant both  with  meaning  and  with  truth,  borne  testimony 
to  the  belief  of  his  Church  in  that  mighty  miracle, — that 
fulfilment  of  a  God's  express  promise  which  takes  place 
under  the  veil  of  the  Eucharist.  It  matters  not : — the  one 
convenient  passage  is  alone  brought  forward  again  and 
again  ;  the  professional  controvertist  must  still  show  him- 
self in  the  lists,  however  "falsified  "*  his  armour;  and 
though  se//*-deception  is  not  always  practicable  in  such 
cases,  the  great  point  is  still  gained  of  deceiving  others. 

The  argument  drawn  from  the  occasional  application 
of  the  words  "type,"  "sign,"  "  figure,"  <fcc.  to  the  Eu- 
charist, I  have  already  disposed  of;  and  a  large  proportion 
of  the  passages  cited,  as  favourable  to  the  Protestant  side 
of  the  question,  come  under  this  predicament.  One  of 
the  most  triumphant  pieces  of  evidence,  however,  (as 
they  themselves  consider  it.)  which  the  champions  of  the 
Reformed  Faith  are  in  the  habit  of  bringing  forward  to 
prove  that  Transubstantiation  wTas  not  the  belief  of  the 
early  Church,  is  to  be  found  in  a  passage  or  two  from 
Theodoret  and  Gelasius  (writers  of  the  Fifth  Century) 
in  which  it  is  asserted  that  the  nature  and  substance  of 
the  sacramental  elements  remain  after  consecration. 
The  extract  from  Theodoret  I  shall  here  transcribe,  as 
well  because  it  affords  a  curious  insight  into  the  opera- 
tion of  the  Discipline  of  the  Secret,  as  because  it  will 
show  to  what  straits  the  opponents  of  the  Catholic  doc- 
trine must  be  driven,  when  they  can  contrive  to  extract 
grounds  for  triumph  from  such  testimony. 

It  is  necessary  to  premise  that  the  passage  I  am  about 
to  give  is  from  a  work  written  by  Theodoret  against  the 
Eutychians  (a  sect  of  heretics  who  denied  the  human 
nature  of  Christ  ;f)  and  that,  of  the  two  fictitious  persons 


*  "  His  shield  is  falsified  "—a  meaning  of  the  word  which  Drydcn 
attempted  to  introduce,  from  the  Italian. 

t  It  cannot  be  said  correctly  that  Eutvches  denied  the  humanity  of 
Christ—  his  belief  being  that,  after  the  incarnation,  there  was  no 
longer  any  distinction  between  tiie  divine  and  human  nature,  but 


(     75     ) 

who  discuss  the  question  together,  Orthodoxus  represents 
the  Catholic,  and  Eranistes  the  Eutychian.  Having 
established,  in  a  preceding  Dialogue,  the  reality  of 
Christ's  presence  in  the  Sacrament,  the  speakers  thus 
proceed : — Eran.  I  am  happy  you  have  mentioned  the 
Divine  Mysteries.  Tell  me,  therefore,  what  do  you  call 
the  gift  that  is  offered  before  the  Priest's  invocation  1 — 
Orth.  This  must  not  be  said  openly ;  for  some  may  be 
present  who  are  not  initiated. — Eran.  Answer  then  in 
hidden  terms. —  Orth.  We  call  it  an  aliment  made  of 
certain  grains. — Eran.  And  how  do  you  call  the  other 
symbol? — Orth.  We  give  it  a  name  that  denotes  a 
certain  beverage. — Eran.  And,  after  the  consecration, 
what  are  they  called] — Orth.  The  body  of  Christ  and 
the  blood  of  Christ. — Eran.  And  you  believe  that  you 
partake  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ] — Orth.  So  I  be- 
lieve.— Eran.  As  the  symbols  then  of  the  body  and 
blood  of  Christ  were  different  before  the  consecration  of 
the  Priest,  and,  after  that  consecration,  become  changed, 
and  are  something  else,  in  the  same  manner  we  Euty- 
chians  say,  the  body  of  Christ  after  his  ascension  was 
changed  into  the  divine  essence. — Orth.  Thou  art  taken 
in  thy  own  snare ;  for,  after  the  consecration,  the  mystical 
symbols  lose  not  their  proper  nature ;  they  remain  both  in 
the  figure  and  appearance  of  their  former  substance,  to 
be  seen,  and  to  be  felt,  as  before ;  but  they  are  under- 
stood to  be  what  they  have  been  made ;  this  they  are  be- 
lieved to  be,  and  as  such  they  are  adored." 

We  have  here  (in  a  conference,  be  it  remembered, 
supposed  to  have  passed  before  the  non-initiated)  three 
no  less  important  points  acknowledged  than, — first  a 
change  into  "  something  else  "  of  the  symbols  after  con- 
secration,*— secondly,  a  Real  Presence  of  the  body  and 
blood  of  Christ, — and,  thirdly,  adoration  paid  to  the  Sa- 


that  the  latter  had  been  absorbed  into  the  former,  as  a  drop  of  honey, 
according  to  his  illustration,  would  be  swallowed  up  on  falling  into 
the  sea.  By  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  which,  in  451,  condemned 
this  heresy,  the  orthodox  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  at  length  fully 
established;— the  union  of  the  two  distinct  natures  in  Christ,  and  its 
correspondence  with  that  of  the  three  persons  in  the  Godhead,  being 
then  definitely  laid  down. 

*  The  same  writer,  in  another  place,  asserts  it  to  be  Christ's  "will 
that  we  should  believe  in  a  change  made  by  Grace  "  in  the  symbols:—- 
tf£wM%n Tria-nvHv  tv  tx.  rug  Xu^ncg  ytyvwpwti  (AtrAQohH* 


(     W     ) 

crament,  in  consequence.  The  only  doubt  the  passage 
admits  of  is,  whether,  contrary  to  the  Catholic  doctrine 
on  the  subject,  Orthodoxus  means  to  assert  that  the  sub- 
stance of  the  bread  and  wine  remains  after  consecration ; 
or  whether,  as  the  Catholic  writers  answer,  the  word 
"substance,"  as  here  used,  means  merely  the  external 
or  sensible  qualities  of  the  elements, — those  which,  as 
Theodoret  says,  may  be  "  seen  and  felt  as  before."  The 
phrase  "former  substance,"  which  seems  to  imply  that  a 
second  substance  has  taken  the  place  of  the  first,  might 
certainly  warrant  the  assumption  that  the  whole  passage 
was  meant  orthodoxly ;  but  the  fairest  conclusion,  per- 
haps to  come  to  (and  the  Catholic  can  well  afford  to  be 
candid  on  this  head,)  is  that  Theodoret  may  have  had 
some  such  vague  notion,  as  Luther,  afterwards,  contrary 
to  the  sense  of  all  Christian  antiquity,  adopted,  of  the 
presence  of  the  substance  of  Christ's  body  and  blood,  in 
the  sacrament,  together  with  the  substance  of  the  bread 
and  wine.  On  turning  indeed,  to  the  volume  of  this  Fa- 
ther's works,  edited  by  Gamier,  I  find  it  to  have  been  the 
opinion  of  that  learned  Jesuit — after  an  impartial  inquiry 
into  the  exact  belief  of  his  author,  respecting  the  modus 
of  Christ's  presence,  that  Theodoret  had,  on  the  whole,  a 
leaning  to  the  Consubstantial  heresy. 

Such,  taken  at  its  very  worst,  is  the  full  extent  of  that 
lapse  from  orthodoxy  into  which,  at  most,  two  Fathers, 
out  of  the  whole  sacred  band  of  the  first  five  centuries, 
can  be  said  to  have  fallen  on  this  subject, — the  apparent 
deviations  of  others  being,  as  I  have  shown,  easily  ac- 
counted for, — and  such  the  quantum  and  quality  of  that 
evidence  against  the  doctrine  of  the  ancient  Catholic 
Church  which  every  successive  champion  of  Protestantism 
brings  forward,  each  triumphing  in  the  discovery  of  the 
same  worn  out  Fools'  Paradise.  The  true  view  of  such 
insulated  instances  of  heterodoxy  is  to  be  found  in  the  fol- 
lowing remarks  which  the  subject  has  drawn  forth  from 
the  editor  of  that  valuable  compilation,  "  The  Faith  of 
Catholics :" — "  Should  it  be  conceded  that  there  is  am- 
biguity in  these  expressions,  or  that  even  the  authors  of 
them  meant  to  convey  a  sense,  in  our  estimation,  he- 
terodox, how  light  must  their  authority  be,  when  balanced 
against  the  massive  evidence  of  so  many  writers  of  their 
own  age,  and  of  the  preceding  centuries ! — '  Since  the 


(     77     ) 

ancients,'  says  Erasmus,  *  to  whom  the  Church,  not  with- 
out reason,  gives  so  much  authority,  are  all  agreed  in 
the  opinion,  that  the  true  substance  of  the  body  and  blood 
of  Jesus  is  in  the  Eucharist;  since,  in  addition  to  all  this 
has  been  added  the  constant  authority  of  the  Synods, 
and  so  perfect  an  agreement  of  the  Christian  world,  let 
us  also  agree  with  them  in  this  heavenly  mystery,  and 
let  us  receive,  here  below,  the  bread  and  the  chalice  of 
the  Lord,  under  the  veil  of  the  species,  until  we  eat  and 
drink  him  without  veil  in  the  kingdom  of  God.'  " 

To  this  citation  from  Erasmus,  I  shall  add  another  from 
a  writer  worthy  to  be  named  along  with  that  great  man, 
the  pious  and  powerful  Pascal,  by  whom  the  views  of  the 
Eucharist  presented  in  the  above  sentences  are  thus 
more  fully  unfolded : — "The  state  of  Christians,  as  Cardi- 
nal du  Perron,  in  accordance  with  the  opinions  of  the 
Fathers,  remarks,  holds  a  middle  place  between  the  state 
of  the  Blessed  and  that  of  the  Jews.  The  Blessed  possess 
Jesus  Christ  really,  without  figure  and  without  veil. 
The  Jews  possessed  of  Christ  only  the  figures  and  the 
veils, — such  as  were  the  Manna  and  the  Paschal  Lamb; 
and  the  Christians  possess  Jesus  Christ  in  the  Eucharist, 

veritably  and  really,  but  still  covered  with  a  veil 

Thus  is  the  Eucharist  completely  suited  to  the  state  of 
faith  in  which  we  are  placed,  since  it  contains  Christ 
within  it  really,  but  still  Christ  veiled.  Insomuch  that 
this  state  would  be  destroyed,  were  Christ  not  really  un- 
der the  species  of  bread  and  wine,  as  the  heretics  pretend : 
and  it  would  be  also  destroyed,  did  we  receive  him  un- 
veiled as  they  do  in  heaven;  seeing  that  this  would  be  to 
confound  our  state,  in  the  former  case,  with  that  of 
Judaism,  in  the  latter,  with  that  of  Glory.1 ' 

The  reader  who  has  thus  far  accompanied  me  from  the 
beginning  of  my  inquiries,  and  who  knows  the  dogged 
resolution  to  turn  Protestant  with  which  I  set  out,  will 
feel  anxious,  perhaps,  to  be  informed  whether,  at  the  period 
where  we  are  now  arrived,  any  traces  of  my  original  resolve 
still  lingered  in  my  mind  ;  or  whether,  with  proofs  clear 
as  daylight,  before  my  eyes,  of  the  true  holiness  of  my 
"  first  love,"  I  had  still  lurking  in  my  heart  any  desire  of 
apostasy  to  another.  Alas,  so  humiliating  would  be  the 
confession  and  explanations  which  an  attempt  to  answer 
this  inquiry  must  draw  from  me,  that  most  willingly  do  I 


(     78     ) 

reserve  them  for  some  future  opportunity ;  and,  in  the 
mean  time,  shall  only  say  that  it  was  not  from  any  blind- 
ness to  the  light, — from  any  want  of  a  deep  conviction  of 
the  truths  that  had  opened  upon  me,  if,  at  the  bottom  of 
my  heart,  some  worldly  longings  still  lingered.  There 
even  were  moments  (such  as  I  experienced  on  reading 
the  passages  just  cited)  when  the  unworthy  "  spirit  of  the 
world"  died  away  within  me, — when  such  a  flood  of 
religious  feelings  came  over  my  heart  as  would  not  suffer 
any  baser  thoughts  to  live-  in  their  current,  and  when  I 
was,  in  soul  and  mind,  all  Catholic,  without  a  "  shadow  of 
turning."  In  this  mood  was  it  that,  after  closing  the 
pages  of  the  two  great  men  I  have  just  mentioned,  I  went 
to  my  pillow,  pondering  over  the  long  list  of  illustrious 
sages, — the  Erasmuses,  Pascals,  Fenelons,  Leibnitzes, 
Sir  Thomas  Mores, — who  have  each,  in  turn,  bowed, 
with  implicit  faith,  before  the  miracles  of  the  Eucharist, 
till,  elevated  above  my  own  conscious  nothingness  by  the 
contemplation  of  such  men,  I  found  myself,  as  I  laid  down 
my  head,  fervently  saying,  "Let  my  soul  be  with 
theirs !" 


■  ■■"»>0  ©  ©<«••— 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


Relaxation  of  the  Discipline  of  the  Secret,  on  the  subject  of  the  Trinity. 
— Doctrine  of  the  Real  Presence  still  concealed. — The  Eucharists 
of  the  Heretics.— The  Artoturites,  Hydroparastatae,  <fcc. — St.  Au- 
gustin  a  strict  observer  of  the  Secret.  —Similar  fate  of  Transubstan- 
tiation  and  the  Trinity. 


About  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century,  the  Dis- 
cipline of  the  Secret  had  been,  on  some  important  points, 
considerably  relaxed ;  and  though  the  Eucharist  still  con- 
tinued to  be  guarded  with  some  strictness,  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  was,  by  degrees,  suffered  to  escape  from 
behind  the  veil.  The  Edict  of  Toleration  which  was,  at 
that  period,  issued  by  Constantine,  gave  to  the  Christians 
full  security  in  the  promulgation  of  their  opinions;  while 


(     79     ) 

the  schism  of  Arius,  by  calling  into  question  the  divinity 
of  the  Saviour,  not  only  rendered  a  declaration  of  the 
Church's  doctrine  on  this  subject  necessary,  but  led 
naturally,  from  the  sifting  controversies  to  which  it  gave 
rise,  to  a  more  definite  marking  out  the  frontiers  of  Tri- 
nitarian orthodoxy  than  had  yet  been  attempted.  Still  it 
was  but  by  slow  and  cautious  degrees  that  the  entire 
dogma,  in  its  perfect  form,  as  acknowledged  now,  was 
developed.  I  have  before  quoted  a  passage  from  a  Father 
of  this  age  where  he  says,  "  Of  the  Mysteries  concerning 
the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit,  we  do  not  speak  plainly 
before  the  Catechumens;"  and,  according  to  the  learned 
Huet  (himself  a  Catholic,)  "  it  is  certain  that  the  Catholics 
durst  not  plainly  own  the  divinity  of  the  Holy  Spirit  so 
late  as  the  days  of  Basil." 

In  the  mean  time,  the  doctrine  of  the  Real  Presence, 
— following,  for  once,  a  fate  different  from  that  of  its  fel- 
low mystery,  the  Trinity, — continued,  as  usual,  to  be 
whispered,  in  the  inner  shrines,  to  the  neophyte,  while, 
as  Gregory  of  Nyssa  informs  us,  the  Eternal  Sonship  was 
become  a  topic  of  dispute  among  the  lowest  mechanics. 
Had  any  schism  respecting  the  Eucharist  taken  place 
within  the  Church,  the  necessity  of  defending  the  doc- 
trine would  have  led  doubtless,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Trinity,  to  the  divulging  of  it.  But  no  such  schism  had 
occurred.  Those  among  the  Gnostic  sects  who  adopted 
the  Eucharist,  though  they  denied  the  real  humanity  of 
Christ's  body,  did  not  question  its  presence  in  the  sacra- 
ment, while  some  of  them  even  believed,  with  the  or- 
thodox, in  a  change  of  the  elements,  by  the  power  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  "  The  things,"  says  the  heretic,  Theodotus, 
"  are  not  what  they  appeared  to  be,  or  what  they  are  ap- 
prehended to  be;  but  by  the  power  (of  the  Spirit  are) 
changed  into  a  spiritual  power."* 

One  of  these  sects,  indeed,  proceeded  so  far,  in  rivalry 
of  the  Catholic  Eucharist,  as  to  contrive,  by  some  me- 
chanical process,  to  produce  the  appearance  of  blood 
flowing  into  the  chalice,t  after  the  words  of  consecra- 

*  'O  rtgroc  etyidL^iTAt  <r»  SuvdLfAti  rou  Trviu/uAro^  ou  tcl  eturet 

OVreC   KdLTA    TO    <p*lVO/UlV0V    QIA  ttotyd-H,  Ahh&   SuVctfMt   it$    eT UVSLjMV 

?rviu/ULU.rt)tnv  fAircL^KhTdii. 
t"U  (Marc)  avoit  deux  vases,  un  plus  grand  et  un  plus  petit;  ill 


(     80     ) 

tion, — thereby  outdoing,  as  they,  thought,  the  orthodox  in, 
at  least,  the  outward  show  of  the  miracle.  In  thus  coun- 
terfeiting, by  means  of  real  liquid,  that  blood  of  which 
they,  at  the  same  time,  denied  the  reality,  these  heretics 
were,  of  course,  as  absurd  as  knavish;  but  the  testimony 
which  their  tricks  bear  to  the  antiquity  of  the  Catholic 
doctrine  is  not  the  less  valuable.  Were  any  additional 
proof,  indeed,  wanting  of  the  prevalence,  in  those  times, 
of  a  belief  in  the  transubstantiation  of  the  wine  into 
blood,  this  effort  of  the  Marcionite  heretics  to  outbid,  if  I 
may  so  say,  the  orthodox  altar  in  its  marvels  would 
abundantly  furnish  it. 

There  were  also  some  other  sects,  besides  the  Gnos- 
tic, that  adopted  peculiar  notions  of  their  own  respecting 
this  sacrament.  The  Artoturites,  for  instance,  a  branch 
of  the  Monta-nists,  offered  bread  and  cheese  in  their  re- 
ligious rites.  The  Hydroparastatse,  from  a  regard  to  so- 
briety, used  only  water  in  the  Eucharistic  Sacrifice. 
Among  the  Ophites,  who  worshipped  the  serpent  that 
tempted  Eve,  the  sacrament  consisted  of  a  loaf,  round 
which  a  serpent  they  kept  always  sacredly  in  a  cage  had 
been  suffered  to  crawl  and  twine  himself;  and  there  was 
a  sect  of  JNIanichseans  who,  holding  bread  to  be  one  of 
the  productions  of  the  Evil  Principle,  kneeded  up  the 
paste  of  which  they  composed  their  Eucharist  in  a  way 
too  abominable  to  be  mentioned. 

These  heresies,  however,  though  on  so  vital  a  point  of 
doctrine,  yet,  having  been  engendered  out  of  the  pale  of 
the  church,*  and  being,  all  of  them,  with  the  exception  of 
that  of  the  Phantasticks,  limited  and  obscure,  were  not 
thought  important  enough  to  break  the  silence  of  the 
Church  respecting  this  mystery.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Real  Presence,  therefore,  undisturbed  by  dissent  and 
sacred  from  controversy,  was  left,  partly  through  policy 

mettoit  le  vjn  destine  &  la  celebration  du  sacrifice  de  la  Messe  dans 
le  petit  vase,  et  faisoit  une  priere  :  un  instant  apres  la  liqueur  bouil- 
lonnnit  dans  le  grand  vase,  et  Ton  y  voyoit  du  sang  au  lieu  du  vin. 
Ce  vase  n'ctoit  apparemment  que  ce  que  Ton  appelle  communement 
la  fontaine  des  nooces  de  Cana:  c'est  un  vase  dans  lequel  on  verse 
de  l'eau,  versee  fait  monter  du  vin  que  Ion  a  mis  auparavantdans  ce 
vase  et  dont  il  se  remplit.-' — Memoires  pour  servir  a  VHisiooii  e  dcj 
Egaremens  de  l' Esprit  Bumain,  $c.  8^c. 

*  St.  Cyprian,  on  being  consulted  respecting  the  nature  of  Xovitian^s 
errors,  answers,  "  There  is  no  need  of  a  strict  inquiry  ichat  errors  he 
teaches,  wbile  he  tenches  out  of  the  Church," 


(     81     ) 

and  partly  through  hahit,  enshrined  in  all  its  forms  of 
mystery  during  the  whole  of  the  fourth  century ;  and  how 
well  the  secret  was  still  guarded  from  the  Catechumens 
as  late  as  the  time  of  St.  Augustin  may  be  seen  from  the 
following  remarkable  passage: — "Christ  does  not  com- 
mit himself  to  Catechumens.  Ask  a  Catechumen,  Dost 
thou  believe  1 — He  answers,  I  do,  and  signs  himself  with 
the  cross  of  Christ;  he  is  not  ashamed  of  the  cross  of 
Christ,  but  bears  it  in  his  forehead.  If  we  ask  him,  how- 
ever, Dost  thou  eat  the  flesh  and  drink  the  blood  of  the 
Son  of  Man  ]  he  knows  not  what  we  mean,  for  Christ 
hath  not  committed  himself  to  him.  Catechumens  do 
not  know  what  Christians  receive."* 

St.  Augustin  himself,  from  the  peculiar  circumstances 
of  his  position,  was  induced  occasionally,  on  this  subject, 
to  adopt  a  reserve  and  ambiguity  of  language  which  are 
not  to  be  found,  in  the  same  degree,  in  any  of  the  writers 
of  his  period.  Living,  as  he  did,  in  Africa,  where  the 
population  was  still,  for  the  greater  part,  Pagan,  he 
deemed  it  prudent,  evidently,  to  follow  the  ancient  prac- 
tice of  the  Church,  and  in  the  presence  of  all  but  the 
Faithful,  to  speak  of  this  Mystery  with  caution.  Hence 
is  it  that,  though  in  none  of  the  other  Fathers  are  there 
to  be  found  passages  more  strongly  confirmatory  of  the 
ancient  and  Catholic  faith,f  on  this  point,  he  has,  in  some 
instances,  employed  language  of  whose  vagueness  and 
ambiguity  the  Sacramentarians  have,  as  usual,  taken  ad- 
vantage for  the  bolstering  up  of  their  desperate  cause.}: 

*  "  Interrcgemus  eum,  Manducas  carnem  Filii  Hominis  et  bibis 
sanguinem  ?  Nescit  quid  dicimus,  quia  Jesus  non  se  credidit  ei.  Ne- 
sciunt  Catechumeni  quid  accipiant  Christiani." — Tractat.  in  Joann. 

t  Alger,  who  defended  the  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation  against 
Berenger,  refuted  him  chiefly,  if  not  entirely,  by  passages  out  of  St. 
Augustin. 

X  Even  by  Zuingle,  however,  it  is  not  asserted  that  St.  Augustin 
was  against  transubstantiation,  but  merely  that  he  would  have  been 
so,  could  he  have  ventured  to  express  his  opinion  freely.  This  he  was 
forced,  says  Zuingle,  in  some  measure,  to  conceal  on  account  of  the 
very  general  prevalence  which  the  belief  in  a  real  fleshly  Presence  had, 
at  that  time,  obtained. — De  ver.  ctfals.  religione.  And  here,  we  may 
be  allowed  to  ask,  how  is  this  admission  of  Zuingle,  with  respect  to 
the  prevalence  of  such  a  belief  in  the  time  of  St.  Augustin,  to  be  re- 
conciled with  that  other  favourite  theory  of  the  Protestants,  which 
supposes  the  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation  to  have  been  first  intro- 
duced by  the  monk,  Paschasius,  in  the  ninth  century?  But  it  is  use- 
less to  ask  such  questions, — there  being,  in  fact,  no  end  to  the  incon- 


(     82     ) 

How  barefaced,  however,  must  be  the  assurance  that 
would  claim  St.  Augustin  as  a  Protestant  authority  on 
this  head,  will  appear  by  the  following"  extracts  from  his 
writings: — "When,  committing  to  us  his  body,  be  said, 
This  is  my  body,  Christ  was  held  in  his  own  hands.  He 
bore  that  body  in  his  hands." — Enarrat.  1.  in  Psalm  33. — 
Again,  in  another  Sermon  on  the  same  Psalm,  he  thus, 
in  the  mystic  language  of  the  Secret,  expresses  himself: 
— "  How  was  he  borne  in  his  hands  I  Because  when  he 
gave  his  own  body  and  blood,  he  took  into  his  hands 
what  the  Faithful  know;*  and  he  bore  Himself "in  a  cer- 
tain manner,  when  he  said,  '  This  is  my  body.''  " — In 
his  Exposition  of  the  98th  Psalm,  he  says,  "  Christ  took 
upon  him  earth  from  the  earth,  because  flesh  is  from 
the  earth,  and  this  flesh  he  took  from  the  flesh  of  Mary : 
and  because  he  here  walked  in  this  flesh,  even  this  same 
flesh  he  gave  us  to  eat  for  our  salvation ; — but  no  one 
eateth  this  flesh  without  having  first  adored  it ;  and  not 
only  we  do  not  sin  by  adoring,  but  we  even  sin  by  not 
adoring  it." 

It  was  my  intention  originally,  as  the  reader  possibly 
recollects,  not  to  include  the  Fathers  of  the  fifth  century, 
— to  which  period  Augustin  more  properly  belongs,  with- 
in the  range  of  these  inquiries;  but  an  exception,  in  fa- 
vour of  so  important  an  authority,  will  without  difficulty 
be  admitted.  The  brief  history,  too,  which  I  have  at- 
tempted to  give  of  the  Eucharist,  through  the  "  aurea 
secula"  of  the  church,  would  have  been  left  imperfect 
without  the  testimony  which  the  passage,  just  cited,  fur- 
nishes; a  testimony  -valuable,  as  proving  the  general  be- 
lief of  a  Real  Presence  in  this  Sacrament,  by  that  best 
practical  evidence,  the  adoration  paid  to  it, — the  belief 
and  the  practice  implying  reciprocally  each  other. 

I  have  already  intimated  that  most  of  the  writers  con- 


*  Quod  norunt  fideles" — These  words,  or,  as  expressed  in  Greek, 
lTdL<riv  ci  TnfAVHfjLivA,  formed  what  may  be  called  the  watch- word  of 
the  Secret,  and  occur  constantly  in  the  Fathers.  Thus  St.  Chrysostom, 
for  instance, — in  whose  writings  Casaubon  remarked  the  recurrence 
of  this  phrase,  at  least,  fifty  times, — in  speaking  of  the  tongue  ("Com- 
ment, in  Psalm  143.)  says.  "  Reflect  that  this~is  the  member  with 
which  we  receive  the  tremendous  sacrifice, — the  Faithful  knew  what  I 
speak  of"  Hardly  less  frequent  is  the  occurrence  of  the  same  phrase  in 
St.  Augustin,  who  seldom  ventures  to  intimate  the  Eucharist  in  any 
other  way  than  by  the  words  "Quod  norunt  Fideles." 


(     83     ) 

temporary  with,  or  just  preceding-  St.  Augustin,  have,  ag 
compared  with  him,  spoken  frankly  on  the  subject  of  the 
Eucharist.  It  was  not  possible,  indeed,  that  such  a  de- 
velopment as,  about  this  period,  took  place  of  a  doctrine 
hitherto  so  enshrined  in  obscurity  as  was  the  Trinity, 
should  not  encourage  by  degrees  a  boldness  of  language 
and  thought  which  would  show  itself  in  the  assertion  of 
the  other  great  mysteries.  Accordingly  we  find, — not 
only  in  the  catechetical  discourses  of  this  time,  but  even 
in  writings  more  intended  for  the  public  eye, — a  far  more 
explicit  testimony  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Real  Presence 
and  of  the  change  of  substance  than  had  been  ventured 
on  since  the  days  of  St.  Justin  and  St.  Irenaeus.  It  is 
worthy  of  remark,  too, — as  adding  another  illustration  to 
the  many  I  have  already  noticed  of  the  similar  fate  that 
has,  in  most  instances,  attended  these  twin  mysteries, 
Transubstantiation  and  the  Trinity, — that  the  same  emi- 
nent men  who,  in  the  fourth  century,  carried  the  latter 
dogma  to  that  high  region  of  orthodoxy  where  it  stands 
fixed  at  present,  were  also  those  who  asserted  most  boldly 
the  entire  Catholic  doctrine  respecting  the  Eucharist; — 
the  same  Gregory  of  Nyssa  who  held  that  "  the  bread 
sanctified  by  the  Word  of  God  was  transmuted  into 
the  body  of  the  Word  of  God,"  having  been  also  the 
strenuous  maintainer  of  the  doctrine,  "  that  there  was  a 
whole  Son  in  a  whole  Father,  and  a  whole  Father  in  a 
whole  Son;"  and  the  same  Gregory  of  Nazianzum  who 
desired  his  hearers  "  not  to  stagger  in  their  souls,  but, 
without  shame  or  doubting,  to  eat  the  body  and  drink 
the  blood,"  having  likewise  told  them  that  "  whoever 
maintains  that  any  of  the  Three  Persons  is  inferior  to  the 
others  overturns  the  whole  Trinity." 


(     84     ) 


CHAPTER  XVII. 


Fathers  of  the  Fourth  Century.— Proofs  of  their  doctrine  respecting 
the  Eucharist. — Ancient  Liturgies. 

Having  now  laid  before  my  reader  the  whole  process 
of  thought  and  inquiry  by  which  that  phantom  of  Pro- 
testantism which  had,  as  I  fancied,  beckoned  to  me  out 
of  the  pages  of  St.  Clement  and  St.  Cyprian  was  again 
explained  away  into  "  thin  air,"  I  shall  now  select  a  few 
of  the  innumerable  passages  that  abound  throughout  the 
writings  of  the  fourth  century,  bearing  testimony  incon- 
trovertible to  the  true  nature  both  of  the  Blessed  Eucha- 
rist itself,  and  of  all  the  rites  and  doctrines  connected 
with  that  mystery, — the  altar,  the  oblation,  the  unbloody 
sacrifice,  the  real  presence  of  the  victim,  the  change  of 
substance,  and,  as  the  natural  consequence  of  all,  the  ado- 
ration. 

St.  James  of  Nisibis.* —  "  Our  Lord  gave  his  body 
with  his  own  hands,  for  food ;  and  his  blood  for  drink, 
before  he  was  crucified."f — Serm.  14. 

"  Abstain  from  all  uncleanness,  and  then  receive  the 
body  and  blood  of  Christ.  Cautiously  guard  your  mouth, 
through  which  the  Lord  has  entered,  and  be  it  no  longer 
a  passage  to  words  of  uncleanness." — Serm.  3. 

*  A  distinguished  Bishop  who  assisted  at  the  Council  of  Nice,  in 
325,  and  was,  as  Cave  describes,  him  "  doctrinae  orthodoxy  vindex 
primarius."  This  Father,  indeed,  deserves  to  be  included  among 
those  mentioned  in  the  preceding  Chapter  as  having  maintained  an 
equally  high  tone  of  orthodoxy  in  both  the  great  Christian  mysteries, 
the  Trinity  and  the  Real  Presence. 

t  "  Christ  offered  himself,  as  a  Priest,  before  his  crucifixion."— See 
Johnson's  Unbloody  Sacrifice. — This  learned  Protestant,  who,  like 
Grabe,  Chillingworth,  and  other  ornaments  of  the  same  Church,  was 
sufficiently  open  to  the  light  of  truth  to  adhere  to  the  ancient  Catholic 
doctrine  of  the  Eucharistic  Sacrifice,  thus  expresses  himself  on  the 
subject  in  another  part  of  his  work: — "  I  suppose  all  Protestants  will 
allow  that  Christ's  sacrifice  was  intended  for  the  expiation  of  sin; 
and,  if  so,  they  cannot  think  it  strange  that  it  was  offered  before  it 
was  slain,  and  that  by  the  Priest  himself ;— for  it  is  clear  this  was  the 
method  prescribed  by  Moses  of  old." — And.  again,  "  We  may  safely 
conclude  that  he  did  then  offer  himself,  while  alive ;  especially  since 
sacrifices  of  expiation  and  consecration  were,  of  old,  thus  offered  by 
the  Priest  before  they  were  slain." 


(     85     ) 

ISt.  Ephrem  of  Edessa. — "  Consider,  my  beloved,  with 
what  fear  those  stand  before  the  throne,  who  wait  on  a 
mortal  King.  How  much  more  does  it  behoove  us  to  ap+ 
pear  before  the  heavenly  King  ivithfear  and  tremblings 
and  with  awful  gravity]  Hence  it  becomes  us  not  boldly 
to  look  on  the  mysteries,  that  lie  before  us,  of  the  body 
and  blood  of  our  Lord." — Parazn.  19.  "  The  eye  of  faith 
manifestly  beholds  the  Lord,  eating  his  body  and  drink-" 
ing  his  blood,  and  indulges  no  curious  inquiry,,*  You 
believe  that  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  for  you  was  born  in 
the  flesh.  Then  why  do  you  search  into  what  is  inscru- 
table] Doing  this,  you  prove  your  curiosity,  not  your 
faith.  Believe,  then,  and  with  a  firm  faith  receive  the 
body  and  blood  of  our  Lord.''1 — De  Nat.  Dei. 

St.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem.]— "  The  bread  and  wine  which 
before  the  invocation  of  the  Adorable  Trinity  were  no- 


*  The  counsel  here  given,  not  to  pry  curiously  into  the  mysteries  of 
the  Faith,  is  inculcated  frequently  in  the  writings  of  the  Fathers* 
Thus  St.  Ambrose  says,  "  Manum  ori  admove; — scrutari  non  licet 
Buperna  mysteria."  {De  Ahrah.  Patr.)  St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria  lays  it 
down,  too,  with  equal  solemnity,  that  all  curiosity  is  to  be  refrained 
from  in  matters  of  faith: — to  7na-<rii  7rcLgx<fixrGV  etn'o\vir^ctyjuov»'ToV 
tivxi  %qh- — Had  the  Fathers  themselves  somewhat  more  attended  to 
this  caution,  much  of  the  trifling  speculation  into  which  they  have 
entered,  touching  the  manner  into  which  Christ's  body  unites  itself 
with  the  bodies  of  those  who  receive  it,  would  have  been,  with  advan- 
tage, avoided.  St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria  compares  the  union  which 
thus  takes  place  to  that  of  lead  with  silver;  while  another  Father  sees 
in  it  a  resemblance  to  the  mixing  up  of  leaven  with  paste.  A  third 
says  it  is  like  the  melting  of  one  piece  of  wax  into  another  ;  while,  by 
some,  an  illustration  of  the  mystery  is  sought  for,  in  the  manner  in 
which  medicine  passes  into  the  entrails. 

Such  attempts  to  solve  what  is  inexplicable  but  afford  triumph  to 
the  infidel  and  the  heretic  ;  and,  accordingly,  in  the  controversy  which 
gave  rise  to  the  celebrated  work,  "  De  la  Perpetuite  de  la  Foi,"  we  find 
the  Reformed  Ministers  profanely  reproaching  the  Catholics  with  be- 
lieving that  the  body  of  Christ  is  received  "  comme  on  mange  des  pi* 
lules." 

t  The  Discourses  of  St.  Cyril,  from  which  these  extracts  are  taken, 
were  addressed  to  those  Christians  who  were  newly  baptized,  and  who 
had,  therefore,  but  recently  been  admitted  to  the  Mysteries. 

The  learned  and  Protestant  author  of  a  very  useful  work,  lately  pub» 
lished,  (Clarke's  Succession  of  Ecclesiastical  Literature)  expresses  strong 
doubts  as  to  the  authenticity  of  these  Discourses  of  Cyril,  but  omits  to 
assign  any  reasons  for  his  doubts.  We  have  against  him,  indeed, 
high  Protestant  authorities.  "  To  question,"  says  Cave,  "whether 
these  Discourses  be  Cyril's  (as  some  have  done)  is  foolish  and  trifling; 
when  they  arc  not  only  quoted  by  Damascen.but  expressly  mentioned 
by  St.  Jerome,  and  cited  by  Theodoret,  the  one  contemporary  with  him, 
the  others  flourishing  but  a  few  years  after  him." 

The  distinguished  theologian,  Bishop  Bull,  contends,  alio,  most  sue* 

8 


(      66     ) 

thing  but  bread  and  wine,  become,  after  this  invocation, 
the  body  and  blood  of  Christ." — Catech,  My  stag.  1. 
"The  Eucharistic  bread,  after  the  invocation  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  is  no  longer  common  bread,  but  the  body  of  Christ" 
— Catech.  3.  "  As  then  Christ,  speaking  of  the  bread, 
declared,  and  said,  '  This  is  my  body,'  who  shall  dare  to 
doubt  it?  And  as,  speaking  of  the  wine,  he  positively 
assured  us,  and  said,  4  This  is  my  blood,'  who  shall  doubt 
it  and  say  that  it  is  not  Ins  blood!" — Catech.  Myst.  4. 
"  Jesus  Christ,  in  Cana  of  Galilee,  once  changed  water 
into  wine  by  his  will  only ;  and  shall  we  think  him  less 
worthy  of  credit,  when  he  changes  wine  into  blood)" — 
Ibid.  "  Wherefore,  I  conjure  you,  my  brethren,  not  to 
consider  them  any  more  as  common  bread  and  wine,  since 
they  are  the  body  and  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  according  to 
his  words;  and,  although  your  sense  might  suggest  that 
to  you,  let  faith  confirm  you.  Judge  not  of  the  thing  by 
your  taste,  but  by  faith  assure  yourself,  without  the  least 
doubt,  that  you  are  honoured  with  the  blood  and  body  of 
Christ: — this  knowing,  and  of  this  being  assured,  that 
what  appears  to  be  bread  is  not  bread,  though  it  be  taken 
for  the  bread  by  the  taste,  but  is  the  body  of  Christ ;  and 
that  which  appears  to  be  wine,  is  not  the  wine,  though 
the  taste  will  have  it  so,  but  the  blood  of  Christ" — Ibid.* 
St.  Basil. — "  About  the  things  that  God  has  spoken 
there  should  be  no  hesitation  nor  doubt,  but  a  firm  per- 
suasion that  all  is  true  and  possible,  though  Nature  be 

imously  against  those  who  would  contest  the  authenticity  of  thess 
Catecheses,  and  the  opinions  of  Vossius,  Whitaker,  and  other  learned 
Protestantsr  may  be  cited  on  the  same  side. 

*  St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  who  lived  in  the  succeeding  century,  i>, 
if  anything,  still  more  express  and  emphatic  in  asserting  a  real,  cor- 
poral Presence  than  his  namesake  of  Jerusalem.  Thus,  in  his  Homily 
on  the  Mystic  Supper,  he  pronounces  Christ  to  be  "  both  Priest  and 
Victim,  him  that  offers  and  that  is  offered."  In  his  Commentary  on 
St.  John,  too,  we  find  the  following  passages: — "  And  what  is  the 
meaning  and  the  efficacy  of  this  Mystic  Eucharist?  is  it  not  that  Christ 
may  corporally  dwell  in  us  by  the  participation  and  communion  of  his  holy 
flesh?" — "By  the  mediation  of  Christ,  therefore,  we  enter  into  a  union 
with  God  the  Father,  receiving  him  within  us,  corporally  and  spiritu- 
ally,  who  by  nature  truly  is  the  Son.  and  consubstantial  with  hira." 

Another  Holy  Father,  Isidore  of  Pelusium,  who  lived  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  same  age,  and  was  one  of  the  Disciples  of  St.  Chry- 
sostom,  thus,  in  writing  against  Macedonius,  who  denied  the  Divinity 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  brings,  as  a  proof  of  the  Spirit's  Divine  nature,  the 
miracle  of  Transubstantiation :— "  Since  it  is  lie  who,  on  the  myste- 
rious table,  produces  from  common  bread  the  very  body  of  Jesus  Christ  in- 
iarnaic:y—Zy.  ad  Marathon.  Monach. 


(     87     ) 

against  it*  Herein  lies  the  struggle  of  faith." — Regula 
viii.  Moral.  "  The  words  of  the  Lord,  '  This  is  my  hody, 
which  shall  be  delivered  for  you,'  create  a  firm  convic- 
tion."— Ibia\  in  Reg.  Brev. 

St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa. — "  What  is  this  medicine? 
No  other  than  that  the  hody  which  was  shown  to  be  more 
powerful  than  death,  and  was  the  beginning  of  our  life, 
and  which  could  not  otherwise  enter  into  our  bodies  than 
by  eating  and  drinking.  Now,  we  must  consider,  how 
it  can  be,  that  one  body,  which  so  constantly,  through 
the  whole  world,  is  distributed  to  so  many  thousands  of 
the  faithful,  can  be  whole  in  each  receiver,  and  itself  re- 
main whole,  f  This  bread,  as  the  Apostle  says,  is  sanc- 
tified by  the  Word  of  God  and  prayer, — not  that,  as  food, 
it  passes  into  the  body,  but  that  it  is  instantly  changed 
into  the  body  of  Christ,  agreeably  to  what  he  said, 
*  This  is  my  body.'  "\—Orat.  Catech. 

St.  Gregory  of  Nazianzum. — "  The  law  puts  a  staff 
in  your  hand,  that  you  may  not  stagger  in  your  souls, 
when  you  hear  of  the  blood,  passion  and  death  of  God  : 
but  rather  without  shame  and  doubting,  eat  the  body  and 
drink  the  blood,  if  you  sigh  after  life,  never  doubting  of 
what  you  hear  concerning  his  flesh,  nor  scandalized  at 
his  passion." — Or  at.  42. 

St.  Ambrose. — "  Perhaps  you  will  say,  why  do  you 
tell  me  that  I  receive  the  body  of  Christ,  when  I  see 
quite  another  thing  ?  We  have  this  point,  therefore,  to 
prove.  How  many  examples  do  we  produce  to  show 
you  that  this  is  not  what  nature  made  it,  but  what  the 
benediction  has  consecrated  it ;  and  that  the  benediction 
is  of  greater  force  than  nature,  because,  by  the  benedic- 

*   Hctv  g*[AtL  3-g:w  et\v$es  wai  aat  fuydLrtv,   km  h  quel;   /u&- 

t  Bonaventura  illustrates  this  miracle  by  the  example  of  a  mirror, 
which,  when  broken,  repeats,  in  each  several  fragment,  the  same  en- 
tire image  which  it  had  reflected,  when  whole. 

%  "  The  thirty-seventh  Chapter  (of  Gregory  of  Nyssa's  Great  Cate- 
chetical  Discourse)  treats  of  the  Eucharist,  where  he  fully  and  clearly 
avows  the  doctrine  of  the  Real  Presence— KslX&s  cvv  hzi  vuv  tov  too 
Xoya  tou  Qtov  ecyix.£o/utvov  et^rov  etc  g-cojua  rou  Gtov  Aoyou  fxi^st- 
vromo-&Ai  7ri<Ti-ivo(j.*t."— Clarke's  Succession,  &c.  It  is,  in  like  man- 
ner,  acknowledged  by  the  learned  Protestant,  Dr.  Grabe,  that  Gregory 
of  Nyssa  and  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  both  assert,  in  their  writings,  that 
the  substance  of  bread  in  the  Eucharist  is  transferred  into  the  flesh 
of  Christ  which  he  took  of  the  Virgin. 


(     88     ) 

Hon,  nature  itself  is  changed.  Moses  cast  his  rod  on 
the  ground,  and  it  became  a  serpent ;  he  caught  hold  of 
the  serpent's  tail,  and  it  recovered  the  nature  of  a  rod. 

Thou  hast  read  of  the  Creation  of  the  world: 

if  Christ,  by  his  word,  was  able  to  make  something  out 
of  nothing,  shall  he  not  be  thought  able  to  change  one 
thing  into  another  ?"* — De  Mysteriis. 

St.  Jerome. — "  Moses  gave  us  not  the  true  bread,  but 
our  Lord  Jesus  did.  He  invites  us  to  the  feast,  and  is 
himself  our  meat :  he  eats  with  us,  and  we  eat  Aim." — 
Ep.  150,  ad  Hedib. 

St.  Gaudentius  of  Brescia. — "In  the  shadows  and 
figures  of  the  ancient  Pasch,  not  one  lamb,  but  many 
were  slain,  for  each  house  had  its  sacrifice,  because  one 
victim  could  not  suffice  for  all  the  people :  and  also  be- 
cause the  mystery  was  a  mere  figure,  and  not  the  reality 
of  the  passion  of  the  Lord.  For  the  figure  of  a  thing  is 
not  the  reality,  but  only  the  image  and  representation  of 
the  thing  signified.  But  now,  when  the  figure  has  ceased, 
the  one  that  died  for  all,  immolated  in  the  mystery  of 
bread  and  wine,  gives  life  through  all  the  churches,f  and, 

*  Of  this  Discourse  of  St.  Ambrose,  the  writer,  referred  to  in  the 
preceding  note,  says — "  Had  a  work  been  now  written  on  ihe  Roman 
Catholic  practice  and  doctrine  of  Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper,  it 
could  not  more  fully  assert  the  Papal  creed  on  these  points  than  this  Dis- 
course." (Clarke's  Succession  cf  Sacred  Literature.)  After  such  admis- 
sions as  this, — and  no  Protestant,  with  candour  and  knowledge,  will 
gainsay  its  truth, — what  becomes,  I  again  ask,  of  the  old  wives'  tale 
still  harped  upon  occasionally  by  a  few  worn-out  controversialists, 
which  would  represent  Transubstantiation  as  an  invention  of  the 
ninth  century? 

In  the  Treatise  de  Sacramentis,  attributed  to  St.  Ambrose,  we  find 
equally  strong  and  clear  proofs  of  this  Father's  belief  in  Transubstan- 
tiation. As,  for  instance,  "  Though  they  may  seem  to  be  the  figure 
of  the  bread  and  wine,  yet,  after  the  consecration,  they  must  be  be- 
lieved to  be  the  flesh  and  blood  and  nothing  else."  In  noticing  the 
doubts  that  have  been  raised  as  to  the  authenticity  of  this  particular 
Treatise,  Mr.  Clarke  observes,  "The  arguments  seem  strong  against 
it;  but,  however  it  maybe,  it  is  clear,  from  the  ascertained  productions 
of  this  author,  that  the  doctrines  contained  in  it  are  in  accordance 
with  his  opinions;  and  the  Real  Presence,  and  the  forms  and  ceremo- 
nies, &c.  of  Baptism,  are  just  such  as  St.  Ambrose  would  have  deli- 
vered." 

t  Such  passages  as  this,  wiiich  abound  in  the  writers  of  the  fourth 
age,  attributing  a  life-giving  effect  to  the  participation  of  the  Eucha- 
rist, prove  most  clearly  that  the  sixth  chapter  of  St.  John  was  under- 
stood by  them  as  referring  to  that  Sacrament  In  this  sense,  Julius 
Firmicus,  a  writer  of  the  fourth  age,  calls  the  Eucharistic  chalice  "  po- 
culum  immortale,"  and  adds,  that  bestows  upon  the  dying  the  gift  of 
eternal  life     M  And  what  do  they  hold  (says  St.  Augustin)  who  ealj 


(     89     ) 

being  consecrated,  sanctifies  those  who  consecrate.  .  .  . 
....  He  who  is  the  Creator  and  Lord  of  all  natures, 
who  produces  bread  from  the  earth,  of  the  bread  makes 
his  own  proper  body  (for  lie  is  able,  and  he  promised  to 
do  it)  and  who  of  water  made  wine,  and  of  wine  his 
blood."—  Tract.  11,  de  Pasch. 

St.  John  Chrysostom. — "  Let  us  believe  God  in  every 
thing,  and  not  gainsay  him,  although  what  is  said  may 
seem  contrary  to  our  reason  and  our  sight*  Let  his 
word  overpower  both.  Thus  let  us  do  in  mysteries,  not 
looking  only  on  the  things  that  lie  before  us,  but  holding 
fast  his  words ;  for  his  word  cannot  deceive!  but  our 
sense  is  very  easily  deceived.  Since  then  his  word  says, 
*  This  is  my  body,'  let  us  assent  and  believe,  and  view  it 
with  the  eyes  of  our  understanding." — Homil.  82,  in 
Matt.  "  As  many  as  partake  of  this  body,  as  many  as 
taste  of  this  blood,  think  ye  it  nothing  different  from 
that  which  sits  above,  and  is  adored  by  angels.1'' — Homil. 
3,  in  c.  1,  ad  Ephes.  "  Wonderful ! — the  table  is  spread 
with  mysteries,  the  Lamb  of  God  is  slain  for  thee,  and 
the  spiritual  blood  flows  from  the  sacred  table.  The 
spiritual  fire  comes  down  from  heaven ;  the  blood  in  the 
chalice  is  drawn  from  the  spotless  side  for  thy  purifica- 
tion. Thinkest  thou  that  thou  seest  bread  ?  that  thou 
seest  wine?  that  these  things  pass  off  as  other  foods  do? 
Far  be  it  from  thee  to  think  so.  But,  as  wax  brought 
near  to  the  fire  loses  its  former  substance  which  no  long- 
er remains ;  so  do  thou  thus  conclude,  that  the  mysteries 
(the  bread  and  wine)  are  consumed  by  the  substance  of 
the  Body." — Horn.  9,  de  Pcenit.  "  But  are  there  many 
Christs,  as  the  offering  is  made  in  many  places'?  By  no 
means:  it  is  the  same  Christ  every  where;  here  entire, 
and  there  entire,  one  body.  As  then,  though  offered  in 
many  places,  there  is  one  body,  and  not  many  bodies ;  so 
is  there  one  sacrifice." — Horn.  17,  in  c.  9,  ad  Hebr. 

St.  Maruthas. — "  As  often  as  we  approach  and  receive 


the  Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Table,  Life,  but  that  which  was  said, '  I 
am  the  Bread  of  Life,  and  except  ye  eat  of  me,  ye  shall  have  no  life  in 
you?"' 

*  The  same  Father  defines  the  signification  of  a  Mystery  to  be, 
"  when  we  see  one  thing  but  believe  it  to  be  another."— greg*  cp&jutvt 

8* 


(      90      ) 

on  our  hands  the  body  and  blood,  we  believe  that  we  em- 
brace his  body,  and  become,  as  it  is  written,  flesh  of  his 
flesh  and  bone  of  his  bones.  For  Christ  did  not  call  it 
the  figure  or  species  of  his  body,  but  he  said,  'this  truly 
is  my  body  and  this  is  my  blood.'  " — Com.  in  Mat. 

In  addition  to  the  decisive  testimony  of  all  the  Fathers 
on  this  subject,  there  is  yet  another  body  of  evidence, 
still  more  ancient  and  precious,  to  be  found  in  those  Li- 
turgies of  the  early  Churches,  Greek,  Latin,  Arabic,  Sy- 
riac,  die.  which,  like  the  Apostles'  Creed,  and  for  similar 
reasons,  were  handed  down  unwritten,*  and  preserved, 
in  the  memories  of  the  Faithful,  from  age  to  age.  It  was 
not  till  Christianity  had  found  a  refuge  under  the  roofs  of 
Kings  that  these  depositories  of  her  sacred  rites,  prayers 
and  dogmas,  were  published  to  the  world;  and,  whatever 
interpolations  they  may  have,  some  of  them,  suffered  in 
their  progress,  it  is  not  doubted,  among  the  learned,  that, 
in  those  parts  where  they  are  found  all  to  agree,  they 
may  be  depended  upon  as  authentic  monuments  of  the 
apostolic  times.f  Their  entire  agreement,  therefore,  in 
the  sense  of  those  prayers  which  were  used  in  conse- 
crating the  elements  of  the  Eucharist,}  is  a  proof  more 
remarkable,  perhaps,  than  any  other  that  has  been  ad- 
duced, of  the  apostolical  date  of  the  Catholic  doctrine  on 
that  subject.  An  extract  or  two  from  some  of  the  most 
ancient  of  these  Liturgies  shall  conclude  this  long 
Chapter. 

Liturgy  of  Jerusalem  (called  also,  the  Liturgy  of  St. 


*  The  Apostles'  Creed  is  supposed  to  have  been  one  of  the  Signs  of 
the  Secret,  by  which  the  Initiated,  or  baptized,  knew  each  other,  and 
to  have  thence  derived  the  designation  of  Symbol—See  Hist,  of  jos- 
tles' Creed. 

t  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  (says  Archbishop  Wake)  "  but  that  those 
prayers  in  which  the  Liturgies  all  agree,  in  sense  at  least,  if  not  in 
words  were  first  prescribed,  in  the  same  or  like  terms,  by  those  Apos- 
tles and  Evangelists"  whose  names  they  bear.— .Iposiolic  Fathers. 

X  "  I  add  to  what  has  been  already  observed  the  consent  of  all  the 
Christian  Churches  in  the  world,  however  distant  from  each  other,  in 
the  holy  Eucharist,  or  Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  ;  which  consent 
is  indeed  wonderful.  All  the  ancient  Liturgies  agree  in  this  form  of 
prayer,  almost  in  the  same  words,  but  fuHy  and  exactly  in  the  same 
sense,  order  and  method  ;  which  whoever  attentively  considers  must 
be  convinced  that  this  order  of  prayer  was  delivered  to  the  several 
churches  in  the  wry  first  plantation  and  settlement  of  them."— Bishop 
Bull,  Sermons  en  Cov.mor,  Brayer. 


(     91      ) 

James.) — "  Have  mercy  on  us,  O  God !  the  Father  Al- 
mighty, and  send  thy  Holy  Spirit,  the  Lord  and  giver  of 
life,  equal  in  dominion  to  thee  and  to  thy  Son — who  de- 
scended in  the  likeness  of  a  dove  on  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
— who  descended  on  the  holy  Apostles  in  the  likeness  of 
tongues  of  fire — that  coming  he  may  make  this  bread  the 
life-giving  body,  the  saving  body,  the  heavenly  body,  the 
body  giving  health  to  souls  and  bodies,  the  body  of  our 
Lord,  God  and  Saviour,  Jesus,  for  the  remission  of  sins 

and  eternal  life  to  those  who  receive  it. — Amen 

Wherefore  we  offer  to  thee,  O  Lord,  this  tremendous  and 
unbloody  sacrifice  for  thy  holy  places  which  thou  hast 
enlightened  by  the  manifestation  of  Christ,  thy  Son," 
&c.  &c. 

Liturgy  of  Alexandria  (called  also,  the  Liturgy  of  St, 
Mark.) — "  Send  down  upon  us,  and  upon  this  bread,  and 
this  chalice,  thy  Holy  Spirit,  that  he  may  sanctify  and 
consecrate  them,  as  God  Almighty,  and  make  the  bread 
indeed  the  body  and  the  chalice  the  blood  *  of  the  New 
Testament  of  the  very  Lord,  and  God,  and  Saviour,  and 
our  sovereign  King,  Jesus  Christ,"  &c.  &c. 

Roman  Liturgy  (called  also,  the  Liturgy  of  St.  Peter.) 
— "  We  beseech  thee,  O  God,  to  cause  that  this  oblation 
may  be,  in  all  things,  blessed,  admitted,  ratified,  reasona- 
ble and  acceptable ;  that  it  may  become  for  us  the  body 
and  blood  of  thy  beloved  Son,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.''* 
At  the  Communion,  bowing  down  in  sentiments  of  pro- 
found adoration  and  humility,  and  addressing  himself  to 
Jesus  Christ  then  present  in  his  hand,  he  says  thrice, 
V  Lord,  I  am  not  worthy  that  thou  shouldst  enter  under 
my  roof;  but  say  only  the  word  and  my  soul  shall  be 
healed." 

Liturgy  of  Constantinople, — "  Bless,  O  Lord,  the  holy 
bread — make,  indeed,  this  bread  the  precious  body  of  thy 
Christ.  Bless,  O  Lord,  the  holy  chalice ;  and  what  is  in 
this  chalice,  the  precious  blood  of  thy  Christ — changing 
by  the  Holy  Spirit." Then,  dividing  the  holy 

*  "  I.find,"  says  the  Protestant  Grotius,  "  in  all  the  Liturgies,  Greek, 
Latin,  Arabic,  Syriac  and  others,  prayers  to  God  that  he  would  conse- 
crate, by  his  Holy  Spirit,  the  gifts  offered,  and  make  them  the  body  and 
blood  of  bis  Son.  I  was  right,  therefore,  in  saying  that  a  custom  so 
ancient  and  universal  that  it  must  be  considered  to  have  come  down 
from  the  primitive  limes,  ought  not  to  havs  been  changed."— Votwm. 
■pro  Face. 


(     92     ) 

bread  into  four  parts,  the  Priest  says,  "  The  Lamb  of  God 
is  broken  and  divided, — the  Son  of  the  Father,  he  is 
broken,  but  not  diminished ;  he  is  always  eaten,  but  is  not 
consumed;  but  he  sanctifies  those  who  are  made  par- 
takers," 


♦r^v  ^^  ^♦v***" 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 


Visit  to  T d  Street  Chapel. — Antiquity  of  the  observances  of  the 

Mass.— Lights,  Incense,  Holy  Water,  &c— Craw-thumpers.— St.  Au- 
gustin  a  Craw-thumper.— Imitations  of  Paganism  in  the  early 
Church. 

It  was,  I  recollect,  late  on  a"  Saturday  night,  when  my 
task  of  selecting  the  extracts  given  in  the  preceding 
chapter  was  completed ;  and  so  strong,  I  confess,  was  the 
yearning  with  which  I  found  myself  drawn  back  to  old 
Mother  Church  by  so  many  irresistible  proofs  of  her  pure 
Christian  descent,  that,  on  the  following  morning,  for  the 
first  time  since  I  had  ceased  to  be  a  boy,  I  went  to  attend 

the  celebration  of  mass  in  T d  Street  Chapel.    It  was 

as  a  sort  of  peace-offering  to  the  manes  of  my  venerable 

old  confessor,  Father  O' ,  that  I  thus  chose  the  chapel 

to  which  he  had  belonged,  as  the  scene  of  the  Prodigal's 
Return,  and, — like  those  mariners  of  old  who  used  to 
hang  up  their  votive  tablets  in  the  temple,  after  escaping 
from  shipwreck, — went  to  offer  up  a  short  prayer  on  my 
arrival,  safe  and  sound,  from  this  long  and  adventurous 
cruise  after  that  phantom-ship,  primitive  Protestantism. 

But,  though  returning  thus  to  the  mansion  of  her  who 
had  nursed  me,  was  I,  indeed,  "  worthy  to  be  called  her 
son?" — Though  my  reason  had  been  so  fully,  so  abun- 
dantly convinced,  was  that  worst  source  of  error,  "  the 
blindness  of  the  heart,"  yet  removed  1  My  readers  them- 
selves will  know  but  too  well  how  to  answer  this  question, 
when  I  confess,  that  so  ashamed  did  I  feel  even  of  the 
slight  hankering  after  my  former  faith  which  this  visit  to 
the  chapel  betrayed,  that  I  took  care  to  place  myself 
where  I  should  be  least  likely  to  meet  with  persons  who 


(     93     ) 

knew  me ;  and  even  there  cowered  in  my  corner  so  as  to 
be,  as  much  as  possible,  concealed. 

Though  it  is  evident,  from  all  this,  that  my  feeling  of 
religion  had  gained  but  little  by  my  late  course  of  sacred 
studies,  my  stock  of  knowledge  on  the  subject  could  not 
be  otherwise  than  considerably  increased.  Far  different, 
indeed,  were  the  thoughts  with  which  I  now  witnessed 
the  ceremonies  of  that  altar  from  those  which  they  had 
awakened  in  me  in  my  boyish  days.  I  had  then  blindly 
revered  all  its  forms,  without  knowing  what  they  meant; 
I  was  now  book-learned  in  their  history  and  their  import, 
but — where  was  the  feeling]  It  was,  I  blush  to  own,  far 
more  with  the  zeal  of  an  antiquary  than  of  a  Catholic,  or 
Christian,  that,  as  I  now  peeped  from  my  corner,  I  took 
pleasure  in  tracing,  through  every  part  of  the  service, 
some  doctrine  or  observance  of  the  primitive  times,  and 
admiring  the  watchful  fidelity  with  which  Tradition  had 
handed  down  every  little  ceremony  connected  with  that 
dawn  of  our  faith. 

In  the  use  of  lights  and  incense, — a  practice  sneered 
at  by  the  Protestant,  as  pagan, — I  but  read  the  touching 
story  of  the  early  Church,  when  her  children,  hunted  by 
the  persecutor,  held  their  religious  meetings  either  at 
night,  or  in  subterranean  places,*  whose  gloom,  of  course, 
rendered  the  light  of  tapersf  necessary,  and  where  the 
fumes  of  the  censer,  besides  being  familiar  to  the  people 
among  whom  Christianity  first  sprung,  were  resorted  to 
as  a  means  of  dissipating  unwholesome  odours.  In  sprink- 
ling the  Holy  Water  on  my  forehead,  I  called  to  mind 
the  far  period, — as  early  as  the  beginning  of  the  second 
century, — when  salt  bngan  to  be  mixed  with  the  blessed 
water,  in  memory  of  Christ's  death  ;|  or,  as  others  will 
have  it,  as  a  mystic  type  of  the  hypostatic  union  of  the 
two  natures  in  the  Redeemer. 

*  Ciampini,  in  his  curious  work  on  the  remains  of  ancient  buildings 
and  Mosaics,  denies  that  the  primitive  Christians  performed  their  wor- 
ship in  crypts,  and  asserts  that  their  meetings  were  held  in  houses 
built  over  or  near  the  cemeteries.  This  lahorious  antiquary  numbers 
up  a  list  of  no  less  than  eighty  churches  built  by  the  Christians  from 
the  year  33  to  275. 

t  Thus  we  are  told,  in  some  notes  on  Eusebius  (Dc  Die  Dominieo, 
•'  Q,uod  Christiani  mane  quondam  congregati,  Synaxes  suas  ad  lumina 
accensa  celcbrarint,  qu?e  deinceps,  etiam  interdiu  retenta  sunt." 

X  According  to  Tertullian,  the  sprinkling  of  the  Holy  Water  wa^ 
"  in  maraoriam  riedicatjonie  Christi  " 


(     94     ) 

At  that  period  of  the  Mass  when  the  mysterious  Sacri- 
fice begins,  I  found  myself  reminded  of  the  forms  of  words, 
"  Foris  Catechumeni,"  in  which  invariably,  as  long  as  the 
Discipline  of  the  Secret  continued  to  be  observed,  the 
Catechumens,  or  unbaptized,  were  dismissed  from  Church, 
before  those  Mysteries,  which  none  but  the  initiated  were 
allowed  to  witness,  commenced.  By  the  words,  "  Per 
quern  haec  omnia  Domine,"*  my  thoughts  were  recalled 
to  the  simplicity  of  the  first  ages,  when  the  young  fruits 
of  the  season  used  to  be  laid  on  the  altar,  and  receive,  in 
these  words,  the  blessing  of  the  Priest,  before  the  Com- 
munion. Again,  when  I  heard  the  Priest  say,  "  Lift  up 
your  hearts/'  and  the  people  respond  to  him,  "  We  have 
lifted  them  up  to  the  Lord,"'  could  I  help  remembering 
with  reverence  that  in  the  very  same  phrases  did  St.  Cy- 
prian and  his  flock  commune  before  their  God,f  no  less 
than  fifteen  hundred  years  since, — that  is,  twelve  whole 
centuries  before  any  of  those  Protestants,  by  whom  the 
Mass  was  abolished,  existed  ! 

But  there  occurred  to  me  yet  another  proof  of  the  high 
antiquity  of  the  religious  observances  of  the  Catholics, 
which  struck  me  the  more  forcibly  inasmuch  as  it  related 
to  one  of  their  most  ridiculed  practices,  that  of  beating 
the  breast  with  the  clenched  hand,  at  the  Confiteor,  and 
other  parts  of  the  service ; — a  practice,  which,  in  Ireland, 
has  drawn  down  on  the  Papists  the  well-bred  appellation 
of  craw-thumpers.  When  I  looked  round,  however,  upon 
the  humble  Christians,  thus  nick-named,  and  remembered 
that  St.  Augustin  himself,  the  pious  and  learned  St  Au- 
gustin,  was  also  a  craw-thumper,  I  felt  that  to  err  with 
him,  was,  at  least,  erring  in  good  company,  and  proceed- 
ed to  join  the  "  tundentes  pectora"  (as  the  Saint  describes 
them,J)  with  all  my  might. 

The  charge  brought  against  the  Catholics  of  being  co- 
pyists of  the  Pagans  is  one  regularly  renewed  by  every 
tour-writing    parson   who    returns,   horror-struck   with 

*  By  Calvin,  Basnage,  &c.  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  turn  this 
formula  of  the  Ancient  Mass  into  an  argument  against  the  doctrine 
of  the  Real  Presence, — but  the  explanation  given  above  is  a  sufficient 
answer  to  their  cavils. 

t  De  Orat.  Domin. — St.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  also  makes  mention  of 
this  formula,  Catech.  Myst.  5. 

X  "  Si  non  habemus  peccata,  et  tundentes  pectora,  dicimua  4  Dimitte 
nobis  peccata  nostra.'  &c.  &c.v— Serm.  35. 


(     96     ) 

images,  &c.  from  Rome  and  Naples.  So  far  from  deny- 
ing, however,  their  adoption  of  some  Pagan  customs,  the 
early  Christians  would  have  avowed  and  justified  such  a 
policy,  as  calculated  to  soften  down  that  appearance  of 
novelty  in  their  faith  which  formed  one  of  the  most  start- 
ling obstacles  to  its  reception  with  the  Heathen,  and 
thus  to  enable  them,  by  borrowing  some  of  the  forms  of 
error,  to  win  over  their  hearers  to  the  substance  of 
truth* 

The  numerous  vestiges,  indeed,  of  Paganism,  which 
partly  from  this  policy,  partly  from  the  force  of  habit  and 
imitation,  were  still  retained  in  the  ritual,  language,  and 
ceremonies  of  the  early  Church,  would  take  far  more 
space  than  my  present  limits  can  afford  to  enumerate 
them.  Not  to  dwell  on  such  instances  as  the  adoption  of 
the  words  "  Mystery"  and  "  Sacramentf"  from  the  reli- 
gious language  of  the  Romans  and  Greeks, — the  form  of 
dismissal  addressed  to  the  Catechumens,  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Sacrifice,  "  Depart,  ye  who  are  not 
initiated,"  in  which  we  recognise  the  "  Procul  este,  pro- 
fani,"  of  the  Pagan  mysteries, — the  confession  of  sins, 
and  abstinence  from  particular  foods  required  by  both  re- 
ligions of  the  candidates  for  initiation,}:  and  the  different 
stages  or  ranks  through  which  they  were*  in  each,  gradu- 
ally promoted, 5 — the  special  selection  by  the  Christians  of 
those  days,  for  the  Festivals  of  their  Church,  which  had 
been  before  dedicated  to  some  superstitious  solemnity  by 
the  Pagans,  [| — not  to  dwell  upon  these  and  many  other 

*  The  advantage  of  such  a  mode  of  proceeding  is  put  acutely  in  the 
following  words  of  Bede :— "Pertinaci  Paganismo  mutatione  subven- 
tum  est,  quum  rei  in  totum  sublatio  potius  irritasset." 

f  By  Doctor  Waterland  the  application  of  the  word  "Sacrament" 
to  the  Eucharist  is  traced  to  so  early  a  date  as  that  of  the  letter  of 
Pliny  respecting  the*  Christians,  in  which  he  says,  "  Seque  Sacramento 
non  in  scelus  aliquod  obstringere,  sed  ne  furta,  &c."  But  it  is  evident 
that  Pliny  here  employs  the  word,  in  the  Roman  sense,  as  meaning  an 
Oath ;  nor  is  there,  I  believe,  any  recorded  instance  of  its  application 
to  the  Eucharist  before  the  time  of  Tertullian. 

X  After  confessing  their  sins,  the  Heathen  candidates  were  asked, 
M  Have  you  eaten  of  the  lawful  food,  and  abstained  from  the  unlaw- 
ful ?'' — to  PITOU  X.CLI  <T0  /UH  37T0U  <Tc  lyiVVU. 

§  The  last  and  highest  stage  of  initiation  was  by  the  Heathen  Mys- 
tagogues  called  Teletes,  or  the  Consummation  ;  and  in  the  same  man- 
ner, the  admission  of  the  Christian  neophyte  to  communion  is  styled 
frequently  by  the  Fathers  tx§uv  wri  ro  retetov. 

|j  •*  Our  Lord  God,"  says  Theodoret,  "  hath  brought  his  dead  (viz. 
the  Martyrs)  into  the  room  and  place  of  your  gods,  whom  he  hath  sent 


(     96     ) 

such  striking  points  of  resemblance,  we  can  trace,  even 
in  the  Liturgic  service  of  the  early  Church,  both  the 
forms  and  language  of  the  Pagan  worship. 

Thus  that  species  of  Psalmody,  called  Antiphony,  first 
introduced  into  the  Church  by  St.  Ignatius,  wherein  the 
anthem  was  sung  alternately  by  two  choirs,  was  the 
mode  of  singing,  according  to  Casaubon,  that  had  been 
practised  in  the  temples  of  the  Gentiles;  and  the  responses 
of  the  people  to  the  Priests  found  a  precedent  in  some  of 
the  ancient  Bacchic  rites: — "  Praise  God,"  said  the  Da- 
duchus,  or  High  Priest,  and  the  people  answered,  "  Oh, 
son  of  Semele,  bestovver  of  wealth."  The  very  words, 
indeed  Kyrie  Eleison,  "Lord*  have  mercy  on  us,"  which 
have  kept  their  place  in  all  Litanies  to  the  present  day, 
were,  as  appears  from  Arrian,  (who  wrote  in  the  second 
century,)  the  ordinary  form  of  prayer  to  the  Deity  among 
the  Pagans.  "  We  pray  to  God  (says  Arrian,  himself  a 
Pagan)  in  the  words  Kyrie  Eleison."* 

So  far  from  denying,  I  repeat  it,  the  source  from  which 
these  forms  have  been  derived,  the  Catholics  are  them- 
selves among  the  first  to  avow  it ;+  well  knowing,  howe- 
ver, the  Protestant  may  wish  to  blink  such  a  conclusion; 
that  these  occasional  resemblances  to  the  forms  of  Pa- 
ganism, in  the  ceremonies  of  their  Church,  form  one  of 
the  countless  proofs  she  can  give  of  the  high  antiquity  of 
her  descent, — even  the  outward  formulary  of  her  devo- 
tions being  thus  traceable  to  that  bright  dawn  of  Chris- 
tianity, when  truth  gained  upon  error  gradually,  like  light 
upon  darkness;  and  when,  if  any  such  lingering  mists  re- 
mained from  the  night,  they  were  but  to  be  made  subser* 
vient  to  the  glory  of  the  day. 

about  their  business,  and  hath  given  their  honour  to  his  Martyrs. 
For,  instead  of  the  feasts  of  Jupiter  and  Bacchus  are  now  celebrated 
the  festivals  of  Peter  and  Paul,"  &x. 

*  lev  Qcov  iTriK'JLktvfAivoi  JiofxiSsL  a.vrcut  Ku^ii  thino-ov. — 
ZHssertat.  Epictet. 

t  The  learned  Brisson  (one  of  the  victims  of  the  League)  says  ex- 
pressly of  the  words  Kyrie  Eleison,  in  his  work  on  the  Forms  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  "  Fontein  hujus  precationis  esse  a  Paganorum  con- 
iuetudine." 


(     97     ) 


CHAPTER  XIX. 


.Ruminations—  Unity  of  the  Catholic  Church.— History  of  St.  Peter'a 
Chair.— Means  of  preserving  Unity.— Irenaeus.— Hilary.— Indefecti- 
bility  of  the  one  Church. 

Surely,  thought  I,  as,  ruminating,  I  sauntered  home* 
Wards  from  the  chapel,— were  there  even  no  other  evi- 
dence in  favour  of  the  authenticity  of  her  claims,  this  ad- 
herence, on  the  part  of  the  Catholic  Church,  through  all 
changes  of  time  and  circumstance,  to  every,  even  the  mi- 
nutest point  of  discipline  or  worship  on  which  the  seal  of 
her  primitive  teachers  was  set,  would  be,  of  itself,  a  suf- 
ficient assurance,  without  any  farther  testimony,  that  she 
had  kept  equally  scrupulous  watch  over  the  great  doc- 
trines bequeathed  to  her,  and  handed  them  down,  even 
Unto  our  own  times,  as  they  were  "delivered  by  the 
Saints." 

Though  nothing  less,  of  course,  than  the  superinten- 
dence of  a  Divine  Providence  can  be  held  sufficient  to  ac- 
count for  this  great  standing  miracle  of  a  church  uphold- 
ing itself  through  the  lapse  of  eighteen  centuries,  un- 
changed and,  as  it  would  appear,  unchangeable, — it  may 
yet  be  permitted  to  inquire  how  far,  as  a  subordinate  in- 
strument, human  policy  may  have  had  its  share  in  pro- 
ducing this  result;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
zealous  watchfulness  with  which  the  pastors  of  the  Ca- 
tholic Church  have  ever  acted  upon,  themselves,  and  pre- 
scribed urgently  to  their  flocks  the  precept  of  St.  Paul, "  Be 
ye  of  one  mind,"  has  been,  of  all  the  human  means  em- 
ployed to  keep  the  strong  fabric  of  their  Faith  unbroken, 
the  most  sagacious  and  powerful. 

What  importance  they  attached  to  Unity,  and  how 
great  was  their  horror  of  schism,  appears  from  the  ear- 
nest language  of  all  the  Fathers  on  the  subject.  "  Unity 
cannot  be  severed,"  says  St.  Cyprian,  "  nor  the  one  body 
by  laceration  be  divided.  Whatever  is  separated  from 
the  stock,  cannot  live,  cannot  breathe  apart:  it  loses  the 

9 


(     OS     ) 

substance  of  life." — De  Unitat.  Eccles.  "  The  ancient 
Catholic  Church  alone  (says  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria) 
is  one  in  essence,  in  opinion,  in  origin,  and  in  excellence, 
one  in  faith." — Strom.  I.  7.  In  a  still  more  Popish  spi- 
rit, St.  Optatus  (a  bishop  of  Milevis  in  the  fourth  centu- 
ry) thus  writes: — »**  You  cannot  deny  that  St.  Peter,  the 
chief  of  the  Apostles,  established  an  Episcopal  Chair  at 
Rome.  This  chair  was  one,  that  all  might  preserve 
Unity  by  the  union  which  they  had  with  it :  so  that,  who- 
ever set  up  a  chair  against  it  should  be  a  schismatic  and 
an  offender.'''' — De  Schism.  Donat. 

The  history,  indeed,  of  this  "one  chair"  presents,  in 
itself,  such  a  phenomenon  and  marvel  as  no  other  form 
of  human  power,  in  any  age  of  the  world,  has  paralleled. 
Through  a  course  of  eighteen  centuries,  amidst  the  con- 
stant flux  and  reflux  of  the  destinies  of  nations,  while 
every  other  part  of  Europe  has  seen  its  institutions,  time 
after  time,  broken  up  and  reconstructed,  while  new  races 
of  kings  have,  like  pageants,  come  and  disappeared,  and 
England  herself  has  passed  successively  under  the  sway 
of  five  different  nations,  the  Apostolic  See,  the  Chair  of 
St.  Peter,  has  alone  defied  the  vicissitudes  of  time, — has 
remained,  as  "  a  city  seated  on  a  mountain,"  a  rallying 
point  for  the  church  of  God  throughout  all  time,  and 
counting  an  unbroken  succession  of  Pontiffs*  from  its 
first  occupant,  St.  Peter,  down  to  the  present  hour. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  more  directly  human  means 
by  which  the  stability  of  the  Catholic  Church  has  been 
thus  wonderfully  preserved, — we  have  seen  that  to  the 
maintenance  of  entire  and  changeless  unity  among  her 
children,  all  the  energies  of  her  most  enlightened  pastors 
have,  in  all  times,  been  directed;  and  such  a  system  of 
union  being,  in  fact,  indispensable  both  to  the  peace  and 
durability  of  their  Church,  it  is  of  importance  to  inquire 
by  what  means  they  so  well  succeeded  in  effecting  it. 
Was  it  by  throwing  open  the  Scriptures  to  the  multi- 
tude 1  Was  it  by  leaving,  like  modern  Reformers,  the 
right  of  judgment  unfettered,  and  allowing  every  man  to 
interpret  the  Sacred  Volume  as  he  fancied]     Far  from 

*  In  speaking  of  the  first  links  of  this  chain,— from  St.  Peter  down 
to  Eleutherius,  the  12th  Bishop  of  Rome,— Ire  rise  us  says,  "  In  this  very 
order  and  succession  has  the  Tradition  which  is  in  the  Church,  and  the 
preaching  of  the  truth,  come  to  us  from  the  Jlpostles." 


(     99     ) 

it; — they  were  as  little  Protestant  on  this  point  as  on  all 
others.  They  asked,  with  St.  Paul,  "  Are  all  Prophets  1 
are  all  Teachers'?"  They  knew,  with  St.  Peter,  that  there 
are,  in  the  Scriptures,  "  things  hard  to  be  understood, 
which  the  unlearned  and  unstable  wrest  to  their  own  de- 
struction.*' They  saw  the  consequences  of  the  first  steps 
of  dissent  in  the  random  course  of  all  the  heretics  of  their 
day;  and  the  language  employed  by  them  in  speaking  of 
these  vagrant  sectaries  was  but  an  anticipation  of  what 
the  Catholics  of  after  times  have  had  to  apply  to  Protes- 
tants. Thus,  St.  IrenaBus,  who  lived,  if  I  may  so  say,  in 
the  very  sunset  of  the  apostolical  age,  and  had  its  light 
fresh  around  him,  after  remarking  the  uncountable  va- 
rieties of  doctrine  into  which  heresy  had  even  then 
branched,  adds : — "  When,  therefore,  they  shall  be  agreed 
among  themselves  on  what  they  draw  from  the  Scrip- 
tures, it  will  be  our  time  to  refute  them.  Meanwhile, 
thinking  wrongfully,  and  not  agreeing  in  the  meaning  of 
the  same  words,  they  convict  themselves.  But  we,  having 
one  true  and  only  God  for  our  master,  and  making  his 
words  the  rule  of  truth,  always  speak  alike  of  the  same 
things. "—Adv.  Hcer.  I.  4  * 

Two  centuries  later  we  find  the  great  Trinitarian,  St. 
Hilary,  describing  the  Arian  creed-mongers  of  his  own 
time  in  terms  no  less  appropriately  applicable  to  the  Lu- 
thers,  Zwingles,  and  Calvins  of  the  Reformation,  and  to 
all  those  succession  crops  of  creeds  that  sprung  up  so 
rankly  under  their  culture.  "  When  once  they  (the  Ari- 
ans)  began  to  make  new  confessions  of  faith,  belief  be- 
came the  creed  of  the  times  rather  than  of  the  gospels. 
Every  year  new  creeds  were  made,  and  men  did  not  keep 
to  that  simplicity  of  faith  which  they  professed  at  their 
baptism.  And  then,  what  miseries  ensued!  for  soon 
there  were  as  many  creeds  as  might  please  each  party ; 
and  nothing  else  has  been  minded,  since  the  council  of 

*  In  the  same  spirit  is  another  remarkable  passage  of  the  same 
Father  : — "  Paul  said,  ■  We  speak  wisdom  among  the  Perfect,  but  not 
the  wisdom  of  this  world.'  Every  one  of  these  men  (the  heretics)  af- 
firms that  this  wisdom  is  in  himself;  that  he  findeth  it  of  himself, — 
namely,  the  fiction  which  he  hath  invented.  So  that,  according  to 
tbem,  the  truth  is  said  to  be  sometimes  in  Valentinus,  sometimes  in 
Marcion,  sometimes  in  Cerinthus,  and,  after  that,  in  Basilides.  When 
again  we  appeal  to  that  tradition,  which  is  delivered  from  the  Apostles, 
and  which  is  preserved  in  the  Church  by  a  succession  of  Elders ,  they  then 
turn  against  tradition," 


(    ioo    ) 

Nice,  but  this  creed-making'. — New  creeds  have  come 
forth  every  year,  and  every  month:  they  have  been 
changed,  have  been  anathematized,  and  then  re-esta- 
blished; and  thus,  by  too  much  inquiry  into  the  faith, 
there  is  no  faith  left.  Recollect,  too,  that  there  is  not 
one  of  these  heretics  who  does  not  impudently  assert  tliat 
all  his  blasphemies  are  derived  from  the  Scriptures" — 
Ad  Constant,  lib.  2. 

Having,  from  the  earliest  times  of  the  Faith,  such  ex- 
amples to  warn  them,  and  adhering  firmly  to  the  princi- 
ple of  oneness  enjoined  by  Christ  himself,  the  heads  of 
the  Church  continued  invariably  to  act  upon  the  system 
of  requiring  all  within  the  fold  to  follow  the  one  Shep- 
herd ;  and  if  any  resisted,  or  dissented,  cast  them  forth 
from  the  flock.  To  this  exclusion,  no  less  awful  a  penalty 
was  attached  than  the  forfeiture  of  eternal  salvation;*  and, 
however  stern  and  tremendous  such  a  decree  must  ap- 
pear, they  who  had  been  taught  that  there  was  but  "  one 
Lord,  one  faith,  and  one  baptism,"  and  who  held,  there- 
fore, that  he  who  was  not  in  the  ark  must  perish  by  the 
deluge,  could  not,  with  any  sincerity,  pronounce  a  more 
lenient  sentence. 

Under  the  shelter  of  such  guards  and  sanctions,  hu- 
man as  well  as  divine,  has  the  Catholic  Church  been 
enabled  to  hold  on  her  changeless  course,  and  exhibit  an 
example  of  permanence,  indefectibility,  and  unity,  to 
which  the  whole  history  of  human  systems  afford  no  pa- 
rallel; sustaining  herself,  unblenched  and  unbroken — 
with  the  single  exception  of  the  partial  schism  of  the 
Eastern  Church — through  a  period  commensurate  with 
the  existence  of  Christianity  itself,  and,  ■  amidst  all  the 
changes,  eclipses,  and  wrecks  of  all  other  institutions, 
delivering  down  the  same  doctrines  from  father  to  son, 
through  every  age;  while  of  all  the  leaders  of  sects  op- 
posed to  her,  from  Simon  Magus  down  to  Luther,  not  a 
single  one  has  been  able  to  frame  a  creed  for  his  follow- 
ers, the  articles  of  which  have  remained  unaltered  be" 
yond  his  own  life-time. 

*  The  Synodal  epistle  of  the  Council  of  Zerta,  drawn  up  by  St.  Au- 
gustin,  thus  tells  the  Donatists: — "Whoever  is  separated  from  this 
Catholic  Church,  however  innocently  he  may  think  he  lives,  for  this 
crime  alone,  that  he  is  separated  from  the  Unity  of  Christ,  wiJJ  not 
.have  life,  but  the  anger  of  God  remains  upon  him." 


(    ioi    ) 


CHAPTER  XX. 


A  Dream.— Scene,  a  Catholic  Church— Time,  the  third  Century. — An- 
gel  of  Hermas.— High  Mass.— Scene  shifts  to  Ballymudragget.— Rec- 
tor's Sermon. — Amen  Chorus. 


This  train  of  thought  into  which  I  had  been  led  by  the 
ceremonies  of  the  morning*,  and  which  continued,  more 
or  less,  to  occupy  me  during  the  remainder  of  the  day, 
was  doubtless  the  cause  of  a  strange  dream  by  which  I 
was  visited  that  night,  and  which,  for  the  benefit  of  all 
those  who  have  any  fancy  for  such  u  children  of  the  idle 
brain,"  I  shall  here  relate. 

I  found  myself  seated,  as  I  thought,  in  the  middle  of  a 
great  church,  in  some  foreign  land,  and,  according  to  the 
impression  I  had  on  my  mind,  in  the  third  or  fourth  cen- 
tury. From  the  lights,  the  incense,  and  the  sounds  of 
psalmody  that  arose  around,  I  could  not  doubt  that  I 
stood  in  some  temple  of  Catholic  worship,  and,  by  a  still 
greater  miracle  of  fancy,  was  reconverted  into  a  good, 
orthodox  Catholic  myself.  On  looking  round,  however, 
through  the  crowd  of  fellow-believers  that  encircled  me, 
I  was  rilled  with  astonishment  at  the  varieties  of  hue  and 
habit  which  they  exhibited ; — the  Roman,  the  Carthagi- 
nian, the  Gaul,  the  citizens  of  Athens  and  of  Jerusalem, 
of  Corinth  and  of  Ephesus,  the  Alexandrian  and  the  Spa- 
niard, all  seated  round,  arrayed  in  the  different  garbs  of 
their  respective  countries,  and  waiting,  in  solemn  silence, 
the  opening  of  the  Mass. 

I  now,  for  the  first  time,  perceived,  by  my  side,  a  youth 
of  divine  aspect,  who  regarded  me  with  a  smile  of  bene- 
volence that  came,  like  sunshine,  into  my  heart.  He  was 
habited  in  the  manner  of  a  shepherd  of  the  old  pastoral 
times,  and  on  considering  his  features  more  closely,  I  re- 
cognised in  him  the  same  friendly  Angel  who,  in  the 
garb  of  a  Shepherd,  had  led  Hermas  through  his  series  of 
Visions.*    An  exchange  of  salutations  having  passed  be- 

*  See  page  22  of  this  volume. 
9* 


(     102     ) 

tween  us,  I  was  about  to  inquire  after  his  old  pupil's  ce- 
lestial health,  when  he  pressed  his  fore-finger  on  his  lip, 
as  a  warning  of  silence,  and,  almost  at  the  same  moment, 
the  first  words  of  the  service  broke  on  our  ears.  The  ve- 
nerable Priest  who  officiated  seemed  to  my  fancy  a  sort 
of  compound  being,  made  up  from  the  descriptions  I  had 
read  of  some  of  the  celebrated  Fathers  of  the  Church, — 
having  the  bald,  Elisha-like  head  of  St.  Chrysostom,  the 
upright  eyebrows  of  St.  Cyril,  and  "  the  beard  prolix " 
(as  Dr.  Cave  terms  it)  of  the  great  St.  Basil.  Some- 
times, too,  as  my  dream  shifted,  like  a  morning  mist,  it 
appeared  to  me  as  if  the  holy  personage  ministering  at 
the  altar  was  no  other  than  my  good  old  confessor,  Father 
O'H himself. 

The  public  part  of  the  mass  being  now  ended,  the  mo* 
ment  had  arrived  when,  by  the  solemn  form  of  words, 
1  Depart  in  peace,"  those  who  had  not  yet  been  initiated, 
by  baptism  were  warned  to  retire,  and  the  Faithful  left 
to  perform  the  dread  Sacrifice  among  themselves.  But 
who  shall  worthily  describe  that  rite  which  followed] 
Never  shall  I  forget  the  effect,  as  it  then  presented  itself 
to  my  fancy,  of  the  still  and  unbreathing  silence*  of  that 
vast  multitude  of  Christians, — till,  at  the  awful  moment 
of  communion,  when,  as  the  Priest,  raising  the  sacred 
Host,  pronounced  it "  the  Body  of  Christ,"  the  whole  as- 
sembly fell  prostrate,  in  adoration,  before  it,  and  the  word 
"  Amen,"f  as  if  with  one  voice  and  one  soul,  burst  from 
all  around.  It  was  like  a  sweet  and  long-drawn  peal  of 
music,  a  concert  of  sounds,  unbroken  by  a  single  breath 
of  dissonance,  from  every  quarter  of  this  earth  which  the 
wind  visits, — all  blending  in  the  belief  of  an  incarnate 
God,  who  by  his  flesh,  hath  redeemed,  and  with  his  flesh 
still  feeds,  his  creatures. 

So  overpowering  was  the  effect  of  this  sound  upon  me, 


*  When  the  Priest,  says  St.  Chrysostom,  stands  before  the  Table, 
stretching  out  his  hands  to  heaven,  invocating  the  Holy  Spirit,  that 
he  would  come  and  give  the  contact,  all  is  stillness  and  silence— 

TTOXXH  HO-V^VL,  7T0XKH  <7iy\). 

t  "  In  the  very  form  of  communion,  the  whole  primitive  Chnrch 
made  a  solemn  and  public  profession  of  the  truth  of  the  body  of  Christ 
in  this  Sacrament.  The  Priest,  in  giving  it,  spake  these  words,  Cor- 
pus Christi,  that  is,  the  b.idy  of  Christ,  and  the  communicant  answered 
Jlmen,  that  is,  it  is  truer— Rutter  on  the  Eucharist. 


(     103     ) 

that  I  had  nearly  waked  with  emotion ; — but  the  inter- 
ruption was  only  momentary.  Though  the  web  of  my 
dream  had  been  broken,  the  thread  was  not  altogether 
lost ;  and,  after  a  short  interval  of  entanglement,  I  found 
myself  again  in  company  with  the  Angel-Shepherd,  in 
;the  very  act  of  proposing  to  him,  that  in  return  for  his 
condescension  in  thus  procuring  me  a  peep  into  a  church 
of  the  third  century,  he  would  allow  me  the  honour  of 
treating  him  to  a  similar  glimpse  into  one  of  our  new- 
fashioned  churches,  or  conventicles,  of  the  nineteenth. 

Scarcely  had  the  words  passed  my  lips,  when,  by  a 
sudden  shift  of  scene,  we  were  at  once,  transported  away 
to  the  Parish  Church  of  Ballymudragget,  and  arrived  just 
;as  the  rich  and  roseate  Rector  of  that  place  was  ascend- 
ing the  pulpit,  to  read  over  to  his  half-a-sleep  flock  the 
•last  ready  made  sermon  he  had  purchased.  The  church 
appeared  to  me  to  have  been,  in  some  marvellous  man- 
ner, enlarged  for  the  occasion,  and  was  now  thronged 
with  a  dense  multitude  of  persons  whom,  by  that  intui- 
tive knowledge  given  only  to  dreamers,  I  knew  to  con- 
sist of  all  the  various  sects  and  denominations  into  which 
— with  a  vitality  as  infinitely  divisible  as  that  of  the  po- 
lypus itself — English  Protestantism  has  been  subdivided  ; 
and  as,  in  the  first  stage  of  my  dream,  we  had  witnessed 
the  spectacle  of  a  variety  of  nations  with  one  religion,  so 
we  now  had  before  us  the  Reformed  fashion  of  one  nation 
with  a  variety  of  religions ; — there  being  collected  there 
(to  mention  but  a  few  of  the  diversities  of  faith  that  pre- 
sented themselves)  Calvinists,  Arminians,  Antinomians, 
Independents,  Baptists,  Particular  Baptists,  Methodists, 
Kilhamites,  Glassites,  Haldanites,  Bereans,  Swedenbor- 
gians,  Quakers,  Shakers,  Ranters,  and  Jumpers. 

It  was  said  of  the  great  St.  Ambrose  that  he  had  a  pe- 
culiar talent  for  smelling  out  dead  martyrs  ;*  and  no  less 
quick  a  scent  did  my  friend,  the  Angel,  appear  to  have 
for  live  heretics.  For,  perceiving  instantly  the  difference 
between  these  moderns  and  the  old,  regular  Christians 
he  had  been  accustomed  to,  he  begged,  in  a  whisper,  that 
I  would  explain  briefly  to  him  the  particular  form  of  he- 

*  "Idem  Praesul  (says  Daille,  gibingly,  in  speaking  of  the  great 
Bishop  of  Milan's  discovery  of  the  two  buried  Saints,  Gervasius  and 
Protasius)  quo  nemo  fuit  in  odorandis  ac  cernendis  sub  terra  quan* 
tumvis  alta  llcliquiis  sagacior  et  acutior." 


(     104     ) 

resy  to  which  they  belonged.  The  task  was  puzzling: 
— just  as  reasonably,  indeed,  might  he  have  inquired  of 
me  the  particular  form  and  colour  of  the  motes  in  a  sun- 
beam. Not  liking,  however,  to  appear  uncommunicative, 
I  at  once  invented  a  generic  name  for  the  whole  assem- 
bly, and  told  him  the  people  he  saw  around  us  were  Su- 
ists,* — so  called,  from  following  each  his  own  way  in  re- 
ligion, and  only  taking  care  in  forming  his  peculiar  creed, 
that  it  should  "as  little  as  possible  resemble  the  creed  of 
his  neighbour. 

Unluckily  for  this  definition  of  mine,  the  discourse  of 
the  Reverend  Rector  happened  to  turn  upon  the  one, 
only  point  on  which  his  auditors  were  entirely  unanimous, 
— namely,  contempt  and  detestation  for  the  ancient  Ca- 
tholic Church,  its  doctrines,  observances,  traditions,  and 
teachers.  To  describe  the  astonishment  of  the  Angel  at 
the  specimen  of  Ballymudragget  Christianity  now  pre- 
sented to  him  would  be  a  task  beyond  my  powers.  When 
he  heard  the  solemn  words  of  our  Lord  in  instituting  the 
Eucharist,  "  Hoc  est  corpus,"  &c,  profanely  travestied 
into  "Hocus  Pocus;"j  when  he  was  told  gravely  by  the 
preacher  that  to  maintain  the  corporal  presence  of  Christ 
in  the  Sacrament  is  as  absurd  as  to  declare  "  an  egg  to 
be  an  elephant,  or  a  musket-ball  a  pike," J — I  saw  his  ce- 
lestial brow  darken,  at  once,  with  sorrow  and  disdain, 
and  he  was  only  roused  from  the  though tfulness  into 
which  such  blasphemies  plunged  him  on  hearing  the 
preacher  mention  Luther  as  the  Apostle  of  this  new  Gos- 
pel he  was  expounding  to  them.-}  ''Luther,"  muttered 
the  Spirit  to  himself;  and  then,  turning  quick  round  to 
me,  exclaimed,  M  Luther! — who  is  he]" 

Somewhat  startled  to  find  the  illustrious  author  of  Pro- 
testantism so  entirely  unknown  to  my  angelic  friend,  I 

*  "  No  common  name  being  to  be  found,  fit  to  comprehend  our  sec- 
taries, but  that  of  a  Suist,one  that  follows  his  own  dreams  or  fancy 
in  choice  of  Scripture,  and  interpretation  of  it." — Dr.  Carter's  .Mo- 
tives for  Conversion  to  the  Catholic  Religion,  1649. 

j  It  is  no  less  a  person  than  Tillotson,  who,  in  one  of  his  writings, 
has  descended  to  this  ribaldry. 

X  "  It  might  well  seem  strange  if  any  man  should  write  a  book  to 
prove  than  an  egg  is  not  an  elephant  and  that  a  musket-ball  is  not 
3.  pike." — Tillotson  on  Transubstantiation. 

§  The  Reverend  Preacher,  however,  had  done  injustice  to  Luther, 
who,  as  far  as  a  belief  in  the  Real  Presence  went  (and  without  consi- 
dering the  nodus  J  was  perfectly  orthodox. 


(     105     ) 

proceeded  to  inform  him  of  the  few  particulars  I  myself, 
at  that  time,  knew  of  the  great  Reformer; — viz.,  that  he 
was  a  monk  of  the  order  of  St.  Augustin  who,  about  the 
year  1520,  undertook  to  bring-  back  the  primitive  purity 
of  the  Gospel ; — that  one  of  his  first  steps  towards  this 
object  was  to  renounce  his  vows  of  chastity  and  marry  a 
run-away  nun  whose  views  of  reform,  it  appeared,  coin- 
cided with  his  own; — that,  still  in  fartherance  of  the 
same  pious  design,  he  struck  up,  as  he  himself  informs 
us,  an  intimacy  with  the  Devil;  by  whose  friendly  advice 
he  pronounced  the  ancient  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  to  be  a 

nuisance,  and  abolished  it  accordingly  ;*  that 1  was 

thus,  to  the  infinite  wonder  and  horror  of  my  companion, 
proceeding,  when  we  both  perceived  that  the  portly 
Preacher  had  concluded  his  discourse ;  and  all  farther 
communication  between  us  was  put  an  end  to  by  the 
scene  that  followed. 

Immediately  on  the  conclusion  of  the  Reverend  gen- 
tleman's sermon,  an  Amen  Chorus, — got  up,  it  would 
appear,  in  direct  opposition  to  the  symphonious  strain  we 
had  heard  some  fifteen  centuries  before, — broke  forth 
from  the  whole  motley  mass  of  Protestantism  around  us. 
Heavens,  what  a  crash  ! — Not  that  celebrated  pig-instru- 
ment, invented  for  the  special  amusement  of  Louis  XV., 
could,  with  all  its  scale  of  grunts  and  squeaks  multiplied 
a  million-fold, f  come,  in  the  least  degree,  into  compari- 


*  See  Luther's  own  account  of  this  famous  conference,  which  he 
evidently  believed  himself  to  have  held,  with  the  Devil,  on  the  subject 
of  Private  Masses,  and  the  result  of  which  was  as  above  stated. — De 
abrop.  Miss.  priv.  Had  we  not  the  recital  of  this  strange  illusion  from 
the  Reformer  himself,  who  describes  all  particulars  of  the  Devil's  tone 
of  voice,  his  off-hand  manner  of  arguing,  &c,  such  an  instance  of 
mental  drivelling  in  so  great  a  leader  of  human  opinion  would  have 
been  altogether  inconceivable.  He  tells  us,  too,  that  his  scenes  of  this 
kind,  with  the  Devil,  were  frequent. — M  Multas  noctes  mihi  satis  ama- 
rulentas  et  ecerbas  reddere  ille  novit." 

t  A  sort  of  instrument,  played  with  keys  like  a  harpsichord,  or 
organ,  invented,  it  is  said,  by  some  Abbe,  for  the  amusement  of  Louis 
XV.,  in  which  pigs  of  different  ages  and  tones,  from  the  youngest  to 
the  oldest,  were  placed  so  as  to  form  the  treble  and  base  of  the  scale. 
According  as  the  performer  played,  a  spike  at  the  end  of  each  key  pro- 
duced the  tones  desired,  while  a  muzzle  was  so  contrived  as  to  act  the 
part  of  Damper,  and  stop  the  mouth  of  each  pig  as  soon  as  his  note 
was  uttered.  The  whole  was  then  covered  in,  so  as  to  appear  like  an 
instrument,  and  the  Abbe;  it  is  stated,  performed  upon  it,  in  the  pre- 
sence of  the  Court. 


(    loc    ) 

Son  with  the  varieties  of  discord  in  which  this  general 
and  prolonged  Amen  was  uttered  forth ; — the  deep,  dam- 
natory growl  of  the  Calvinist,  and  the  exclusive  shriek 
of  the  Particular  Baptist  (shrill  as  the  screaming  of  a 
sea-fowl  in  the  storm)  forming  the  treble  and  base  of  this 
most  discordant  scale.  Every  moment,  too,  some  new 
subdivision  of  dissonance  was  added  to  the  original  stock ; 
till,  at  length,  to  so  loud  a  pitch  did  the  charivari  swell, 
that  no  powers  of  sleeping,  however  dogged,  could  with- 
stand it.  In  an  instant,  the  whole  visionary  assemblage 
was  put  to  flight;  and,  on  awaking,  I  found  myself  lying, 
with  one  of  the  controversial  volumes  of  the  Rev.  G.  S. 
Faber,  Rector  of  Long  Newton,  resting  heavily  on  my 
chest.  I  had  been  employed  in  reading  the  volume  when 
I  dropped  off  to  sleep,  and  its  influence  and  superineum- 
bence  more  than  sufficiently  accounted  both  for  the  long 
and  deep  slumber  into  which  I  was  thrown,  and  the  sort 
of  Protestant  nightmare  under  which  I  had  awaked- 


,   .iik|t   fttk   4jlnr       - 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

Search  after  Protestantism  suspended.— Despair  of  finding  it  among 
the  Orthodox.— Resolve  to  try  the  Heretics.— Dead  Sea  of  Learning. 
— Balance  of  Agreeableness  between  Fathers  and  Heretics. 

I  had,  by  this  time,  as  my  readers  will  easily  believe, 
got  not  a  little  sick  and  weary  of  my  search  after  Pro- 
testantism ;  a  search  hopeless,  I  found,  as  that  of  the 
Bramin,  in  the  Eastern  Tale,  whose  wife  sent  him  all 
over  the  world,  on  a  fool's  errand,  to  look  for  the  Fifth 
Volume  of  the  Hindoo  Scriptures,* — there  never  having 
been  but  Four.  Tired  of  my  learned  studies  and  morti- 
fied to  think  how  much  time  I  had  lost  with  them,  I,  for 
some  weeks,  gave  up  sullenly  all  thoughts  of  conversion, 
and  was  fast  relapsing  into  what  the  Abbe  la  JVlen- 
nais  calls  Indiffierentism,  on  the  subject.     It  happened 

*  The  Tirrta  Bede,  or  Fifth  Veda.— See,  for  this  lively  story,  (a  part 
of  which  closely  resembles  Chaucer's  January  and  May)  the  collection 
called  the  Bahardanush. 


(     107     ) 

just  then,  however,  that  some  circumstances  connected 
intimately  with  that  domestic  secret  to  which  I  have  so 
frequently  alluded,  but  which  must  a  little  longer  re- 
main veiled  in  mystery,  occurred  to  rouse  me  out  of 
the  listless  apathy  into  which  I  had  sunk,  and  make  me 
feel  that, — no  matter  what  my  scruples  or  convictions, — 
I  must  take  to  Protestantism,  of  some  description  or  other, 
immediately. 

The  thought  of  finding,  among  the  orthodox  of  the 
early  Church,  any  creed  but  that  of  Popery  was  now,  of 
course,  out  of  the  question.  I  had  still,  however,  a  fond 
hankering  after  those  primitive  ages,  and  knowing  what 
power  there  is  in  antiquity  to  lend  a  grace  to  error, 
thought  that  if,  even  among  the  heretics  of  that  venera- 
ble period,  I  could  discover  a  little  of  the  primaeval  Pro- 
testantism I  had  been  looking  for,  it  would  be,  at  all 
events,  no  upstart  heresy  of  a  few  centuries,  but  would, 
at  least,  have  that  degree  of  hoary  heterodoxy  about  it 
which,  if  my  conscience  must  give  way,  would  throw 
dignity  round  its  fall.  Nor  had  I  much  fears  of  being 
disappointed  in  this  object  of  my  now  crest-fallen  ambi- 
tion; for  thus  did  I  argue: — if  the  Catholic  Church  (as 
has  been  but  too  clearly  demonstrated)  held,  in  those 
early  ages,  the  very  same  doctrines  which  she  holds  at 
present,  those  who,  at  that  period,  dissented  from,  or  pro- 
tested against,  her  doctrines  must  have  been,  in  so  far, 
Protestants ;  and  though  it  does  not  always  follow  that 
two  parties  who  differ  with  a  third  will  agree  with  each 
other,  yet  was  it  natural  to  hope  that  among  the  grounds 
on  which  the  Anti-Catholics  of  that  time  bottomed  their 
heresies  might  be  found  some  of  those  which  have  since 
furnished  the  basis  of  Protestantism.  This  glimpse  of 
hope  again  awakened  all  my  inquisitive  energies ;  and, 
like  a  return  of  lost  scent  to  the  beagle,  sent  me  once 
more,  in  full  cry,  after  my  game. 

I  have  already  remarked  that  the  persevering  Unity  of 
Faith,  which  the  Catholic  Church  has,  through  all  ages, 
in  pursuance  of  the  Divine  injunctions,  maintained,  could 
by  no  other  device  of  human  policy  have  been  preserved 
than  that  which  the  See  of  Rome,  as  visible  Head  of  the 
Christian  world,  has  ever  adopted, — namely,  the  repres- 
sion of  all  private  interpretation  of  Scripture,  and  the 
assertion  to  herself  of  the  right  of  being  at  all  times,  and 


(      108     ) 

on  all  points  of  faith,  the  guide  to  truth,  the  expounder  of 
Scripture,  and  the  judge  of  controversy.  "  Truly,"  says 
Gregory  of  Nazianzum,  in  speaking  of  the  mischiefs  that 
arose  from  the  exercise  of  private  judgment, — "  there 
should  have  been  a  law  among  us,  whereby  (as,  among  the 
Jews,  young  men  were  not  allowed  to  read  certain  books 
of  Scripture)  not  all  men,  and  at  all  times,  but  certain 
persons  only,  and  on  certain  occasions,  should  be  permitted 
to  discuss  the  points  of  Faith." — Or  at.  xxvi.  St.  Jerome, 
too,  in  a  passage  whose  just  sarcasm  will  be  found  to  fit 
some  of  the  Bible- expounders  of  the  present  day  as  closely 
as  if  they  had  been  measured  for  it,  thus  speaks : — "  In 
all  menial  arts  there  must  be  some  one  to  show  the  way: 
— the  art  of  understanding  the  Scriptures  alone  is  open 
to  every  reader !  Here,  learned  or  unlearned,  we  can 
all  interpret.  The  tattling  old  woman,  the  doting  old 
man,  the  wordy  sophist,  all,  all  here  presume ;  they  tear 
texts  asunder,  and  dare  to  become  teachers  before  they 
have  learned." — Ep.  L.  T.  iv.  Pars.  11. 

To  look  for  Protestantism — whose  very  corner-stone  is- 
the  right  of  private  judgment, — in  a  Church  whose  sys- 
tem it  has  been,  from  the  first,  to  acknowledge  no  such 
right,  wras,  I  now  perceived,  a  gross  mistake, — a  mistake 
into  which  nothing  but  my  entire  ignorance  of  the  Rule 
of  Faith  prescribed  to  the  Primitive  Christians  could  have 
led  me.  For,  after  all,  in  this  point, — in  the  latitude  given 
to  private  interpretation, — lies  the  broad  and  essential 
distinction  between  the  Catholic  Church  and  her  op- 
ponents, under  whatever  forms  or  at  whatever  periods 
such  opponents  may  have  appeared.  The  test,  indeed,  is 
as  true  and  as  applicable  to  the  respective  parties  in  the 
first  century  as  in  the  nineteenth ;  and  in  whatever  ager 
however  early  we  find  professed  Christians,  questioning 
or  rejecting  the  authority  of  the  Church,  and  grounding 
their  opposition  to  her  rites  or  doctrines  upon  the  Scrip- 
tures, as  interpreted  by  themselves,  we  may  be  assured 
that  there  is  already  at  work  the  spirit  of  Protestantism. 

Having  come  to  this  conclusion,  I  now,  once  more,  be- 
took myself  to  my  folios, — once  more  plunged  into  that 
Dead  Sea  of  Learning  which  is  so  little  suited  to  a  diver 
of  light  bulk,  like  myself,*  and  over  which  never  hath  the 

*  In  explanation  of  these  metaphors  of  my  young  friend,  I  may  a* 


(    io^    ) 

wing  of  Fancy  been  known  to  fly  without  drooping.  It 
is  true,  my  present  course  of  study  lay  through  a  far  more 
varied  line  of  road  than  that  by  which  I  had  before  tra- 
velled. In  my  researches  hitherto,  I  had  kept  chiefly  to 
what  the  Fathers  call  u  the  Royal  Road  of  Orthodoxy ;" 
— whereas  I  was  now  about  to  track  Heresy  through  her 
by-lanes  and  cross-ways;  to  beat  up,  as  it  were,  the 
haunts  of  Heterodoxy,  and  ascertain  to  what  extent  Pro- 
tan  tism  had  burrowed  among  her  coverts.  As  far  as 
amusement  goes,  my  readers  will  be,  I  should  hope,  gainers 
by  this  change  of  route.  Good  company,  says  a  French 
roue,  is  a  good  thing,  but  bad  is  better;  and  just  so  did  I 
find  the  balance  of  agreeableness  between  my  Fathers 
and  my  Heretics, — the  respectability  being  all,  of  course, 
on  the  former  side,  while  the  amusement  is  on  the  latter; 
there  being,  in  fact,  no  conceivable  freak  or  vagary  of 
opinion  into  which  at  the  early  periods  of  the  Church  I 
am  about  to  speak  of,  that  will-o'-th'-wisp,  Private  Judg- 
ment, did  not  lure  his  weak  followers. 


—»•►»©  @  ©<**«•- 


CHAPTER  XXII. 


The  Capharnaites  the  first  Protestants. — Discourse  of  our  Saviour  at 
Capsrnaum— its  true  import.— Confirmatory  of  the  Catholic  doctrine 
of  the  Eucharist. 

It  is  melancholy  to  think  how  soon  Heresy  intruded 
itself  into  the  Christian  fold ;  and  how,  in  the  same 
manner  as  the  blessed  abode  of  our  first  Parents  was 
scarcely  called  into  existence  before  the  Spirit  of  Evil  con- 
trived to  enter  and  to  darken  it  with  his  doubts,  so  Chris- 
tianity had  hardly  opened  her  second  Eden  to  mankind, 
before  the  same  Evil  intruder,  with  the  same  tongue  of 
reasoning  and  heart  of  guile,  came  to  question  her  mys- 
teries and  throw  a  blight  over  her  blessings. 

well  state,  that  the  difficulty  of  diving  in  the  Dead  Sea  was  noticed  as 
far  back  as  Strabo's  time ;  and  that  the  effect  of  its  exhalations  on  birds 
that  fly  over  it  is  a  common  but,  I  believe,  unfounded  notion. 

10 


(    no    ) 

One  of  the  first  instances,  and  by  far  the  most  signal, 
that  occur  in  the  History  of  Christianity,  of  this  sort  of 
questioning  spirit,  this  rising  up  of  the  judgment  against 
Faith,  to  which  all  the  Herecies  and  Schisms  that  have 
occurred  since  owe  their  rise,  is  to  be  found  in  the  me* 
morable  speech  of  the  Jews  of  Capernaum,  when  our 
Saviour  first  announced  the  great  mystery  of  the  Eu- 
charist:— "  How  can  this  man  give  us  his  flesh  to  eat!" 

We  have  here,  I  repeat,  one  of  the  first  recorded  pro- 
tests of  Private  Judgment  against  the  mysteries  of  the 
Church  of  Christ.  It  is,  therefore,  of  importance  to  ex- 
amine a  little  into  the  details  of  the  great  transaction  it 
refers  to ;  and  we  shall  find,  I  think,  that  could  the  various 
texts  of  Scripture,  levelled  against  "  the  wisdom  of 
this  world,"  have  left  us  any  room  to  doubt  of  the  infinite- 
ly low  estimate  at  which  human  reason  and  its  conclu- 
sions are  rated  in  the  eyes  of  heaven,  the  little  deference 
paid  by  Christ,  on  this  occasion,  to  the  reasoning  powers 
of  his  auditors  would  be,  in  itself,  a  sufficient  evidence  of 
the  humbling  truth  ;  would,  of  itself,  sufficiently  teach 
the  presumptuous  Spirit  of  Private  Judgment  how  sacred- 
ly the  precincts  of  Faith  are  meant  to  be  guarded  from 
its  intrusions. 

Our  Saviour  had  told  them,  "the  bread  which  I  will 
give  you  is  my  flesh,  which  I  will  give  for  the  life  of  the 
world."  Had  the  hearers  of  these  words  understood 
them  to  have  been  used  metaphorically  by  the  speaker, 
neither  wonder  nor  scandal  could  possibly  have  resulted 
from  them.  But  it  is  evident  the  whole  assembly  under- 
stood his  language  literally,  and  while  the  Apostles  were 
silent  and,  with  implicit  faith,  "  believed  on  him  that 
God  had  sent,"  the  Jews  and  many  even  of  his  own  dis- 
ciples murmured  at  such  hard  doctrine.  We  can  even 
imagine,  at  that  juncture,  some  Capharnaite  divine,  some 
Tillotson  of  the  Synagogue,  thus  addressing  his  flock: — 
"  Surely,  my  beloved  brethren,  it  can  never  enter  into 
any  of  our  minds  that  this  man  will  literally  hold  him- 
self in  his  hand,  and  give  away  himself,  from  himself,  with 
his  own  hands."*    With  far  more  grounds  and  decency, 

*  See  Tillotson,  on  Transubstantiation,  whose  words  are  here  re- 
peated verbatim.  It  is  not  a  little  curious  that  the  representation 
which  Tillotson  gives  of  this  miracle,  for  the  purpose  of  throwing  ri- 
dicule on  it,  is  the  same  that  the  Fathers  did  nut  hesitate  to  put  for- 


(  111  ) 

indeed,  might  the  Capharnaites  have  urged  such  an  ob* 
jection,  seeing  that  they  interpreted  the  promised  eating 
of  the  Lord's  body  in  a  carnal  sense;  even  so  much  so 
(says  St.  Augustin)  as  to  suppose  that  he  meant  to  cut 
up  his  own  flesh  in  bits  and  distribute  it  among  be- 
lievers,* 

The  Redeemer  saw  what  was  passing  in  their  minds, 
as  well  as  in  those  of  his  disciples,  f — who,  however  less 
gross  and  carnal  might  have  been  their  notion  of  the 
mystery,  not  the  less  murmured  at  its  incomprehensibi- 
lity, and,  in  consequence,  meditated  that  secession  from 
their  Master,  of  which  they  were   afterwards  guilty.J 

ward  as  an  enhancement  and  proof  of  its  stupendous  nature.  Thus 
•St.  Augustin,  in  a  passage  already  cited, — "When,  committing  to  us 
his  body,  he  said.  This  is  my  body,  Christ  was  held  in  his  own  hands." 
41  Our  Lord  gave  his  body  (says  St.  James  of  Nisibis,)  with  his  own  hands, 
for  food.1' 

*  "  Many  who  were  present,  not  understanding  this,  were  scan- 
dalized ;  for,  hearing  him,  they  thought  of  nothing  but  their  own  flesh. 
He  therefore  said,  '  the  flesh  profiteth  nothing ;'  that  is,  it  profiteth  no- 
thing, as  they  understood  it;  for  they  understood  it  to  mean  flesh,  as  it 
is  in  a  dead  body,  or  as  it  is  sold  in  the  market,  not  as  animated  by 
life.,,— August.  Tract.  27. 

It  is  supposed  by  other  divines  at  these  words,  "  The  flesh  profiteth 
nothing,  it  is  the  spirit  that  quickeneth,"  had  reference  rather  to  the 
agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  by  whose  descent  upon  the  elements,  ac- 
cording to  the  belief  of  the  early  Church,  their  transformation  into 
the  body  of  Christ  was  effected,  and  the  vivifying  virtue  commmu- 
nicated  to  them. 

t  In  remarking  upon  the  exclamation  of  the  Jew — "How  can  this 
man  give  us  his  flesh  to  eat  ?"  Cyril  of  Alexandria  says,  "  They  re- 
flected not  that  nothing  is  impossible  with  God.  But  if  thou,  O  Jew, 
continuest  yet  to  urge  this  How,  I  will  ask  thee  how  the  rod  of  Moses 
was  changed  into  a  serpent?  how  the  waters  were  changed  into  the 

nature  of  blood  ? For  our  parts,  let  us  derive  great  instruction 

from  the  iniquity  of  others  ;  and  cherishing  a  firm  faith  on  these  mys- 
teries, let  us  never,  on  so  sublime  a  point,  either  in  words  express,  or 
in  thoughts  entertain,  this  How.'''   Com.  in  Joan. 

The  following  declaration,  drawn  up  by  St.  Cyril  and  approved  by  the 
Third  General  Council,  may  be  considered  as  conveying  the  belief  of 
the  Catholic  Church  on  this  subject:— We  receive  it  (the  Eucharist) 
not  as  common  flesh :  far  be  this  thought  from  us ;  nor  as  the  flesh 
of  a  sanctified  man,  and  united  to  the  Word  by  an  equality  of  honour, 
or  as  having  obtained  a  divine  inhabitation  ;  but  we  receive  it  as  the 
truly  vivifying  and  ownfiesh  of  the  Word  made  man.  For  as  the  Word, 
as  God,  is  essentially  life  the  moment  it  beeame  one  with  its  flesh,  it 
imparted  to  this  flesh  a  vivifying  virtue.  Wherefore,  although  Christ 
said — 'Unless  you  eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man  and  drink  his  blood, 
you  shall  not  have  life  in  you'  (John,  vi.  54,)  we  are  not  to  imagine, 
that  it  is  the  flesh  of  a  man  like  to  ourselves,  but  truly  the  flesh  of  him 
[tfixv  ax»5a>s  yivcuivnv)  who  for  us  was  made,  and  was  called  the 
£on  of  Man." 

X  "  From  that  time  many  of  his  disciples  went  back  and  walked  no 
Sioje  with  him."— John,  vi.  66. 


(      112      ) 

Here  then  was  the  important  moment — important  to  all 
eternity, — when,  the  divine  teacher  and  his  disciples  be- 
ing confronted  with  each  other,  the  question  between 
Reason  and  Faith,  between  Private  Judgment  and  Au- 
thority, was,  for  the  guidance  of  future  ages,  to  be  brought 
solemnly  to  a  decision.  Here  assuredly  was  the  moment 
when,  if  Christ  had  not  truly  and  really  meant  what  he 
had  spoken, — when,  if  there  had  been  any  figure  of 
speech  or  allegory  in  his  words,  on  whose  correct  inter- 
pretation no  less  a  stake  than  the  eternal  life  of  mankind 
depended,  he  had  not  only  an  opportunity,  but,  if  I  may 
venture  so  to  say,  was  bound  by  the  conditions  of  his 
high  mission,  to  explain  away  any  such  perilous  am- 
biguity ;  nor,  mysterious  as  was  the  nature  of  the  sacra- 
ment itself,  to  leare  also  the  needless  mist  of  metaphor 
hanging  over  it.  If,  in  short,  to  conciliate  human  reason, 
by  smoothing  away  difficulties  which  must,  to  the  end  of 
time,  he  knew,  startle  and  alienate  the  "  weak  in  faith," 
— if  any  such  deference  to  human  doubts  and  judgments 
ever  entered,  but  in  the  remotest  degree,  into  his  pur- 
poses, then  I  repeat,  would  have  been  the  moment  for 
him  to  evince  such  deference,  and  by  so  doing  authorize 
the  jurisdiction  of  Reason  over  Faith  for  ever  after. 

But  did  our  Lord  thus  act?  did  he  indeed,  show  any 
such  consideration  for  the  judgment  of  his  hearers,  or 
attempt,  in  the  slightest  degree,  to  explain  or  soften  down 
his  own  startling  announcement]  Did  he  (as  has  been 
done  for  him,  in  modern  times,)  confess  that,  on  so  solemn 
an  occasion  he  had  made  use  of  a  most  forced  and  unnatural 
metaphor,  and  that,  by  eating  his  flesh  and  drinking  his 
blood,  he  meant  nothing  more  than  believing  his  doctrine  ! 
Did  "  the  great  Proclaimer  "  of  this  miracle  endeavour  to 
fritter  away  its  wonders  and  bring  them  down  to  the  low 
level  of  the  faith  of  his  hearers,  by  averring,  in  the 
language  of  the  Sacramentarians,  that  the  bread  and  wine 
were  but  the  signs  or  symbols  of  his  body,  or  by  assuring 
them,  with  the  Calvinists,  that  it  was  by  a  mere  act  of 
faith  they  were  to  partake  of  his  flesh,  while  the  body  it- 
self would  be,  at  the  time,  as  remote  from  them  as  heaven 
was  from  the  altar?  Did  our  Saviour,  I  ask,  do  thus? 
Let  the  sacred  text  answer  the  question.  So  far  from 
offering  such  explanations, — any  one  of  which  would  have 
.sufficiently  diluted  away  the  difficulties  of  the  doctrine  to 


(      113     ) 

render  it  easy  and  palatable  to  the  stubborn  judgment  of 
his  auditors, — the  Divine  Master,  as  if  to  show  how 
easily  he  could  "  bring*  to  nothing  the  understandings  of 
the  prudent,"  deigned  no  otherwise  to  answer  their  ob- 
jections, or  their  murmurs,  than  by  repeating,  in  still  more 
emphatic  language,  the  declaration  that  had  so  astounded 
them : — "  Verily,  Verily,*  I  say  unto  you,  except  ye  eat 
of  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man,  and  drink  his  blood,  ye 
have  no  life  in  you." 

The  whole  conduct,  indeed,  and  language  of  our  Sa- 
viour, throughout  this  most  memorable  scene,  stands  as 
an  eternal  rebuke  to  the  presumption  of  human  Reason, 
in  its  vain  attempt  to  fathom  such  "  heavenly  things ;" 
while  the  awful  announcement  then  made  of  the  miracu- 
lous Feast  about  to  be  instituted,!  followed  up,  as  it  was, 
on  the  solemn  night  of  Institution,  by  those  simple  and 
irrefragable  words,  "  This  is  my  Body,"  J  from  the  grounds 
of  that  implicit  Catholic  belief,  which  the  Church  of 
Christ  has,  at  all  times,  maintained,  and  which,  however 


*  It  is  supposed  by  some  that  the  word  Amen,  as  repeated  here,  is  a 
positive  oath;  and  Basnage  is.  if  I  recollect  right,  one  of  the  authorities 
lor  its  having  been  employed  in  that  sense  by  the  Jews.  However 
this  may  be,  the  word,  doubtless,  imports  a  very  high  degree  of  as- 
severation ;  and  "  to  suppose  (as  Johnson  remarks)  that  our  Saviour 
used  it  only  to  justify  a  i-ery  catechrestical  expression  is  to  suppose 
that  a  wise  and  humble  teacher  was  so  fond  of  a  figure  as,  for  the  sake  of 
it,  to  give  occasion  to  his  hearers  to  desert  him." 

In  the  curious  Conference  represented  to  have  passed  between 
Charles  I.  and  the  Marquis  of  Worcester  at  Ragland,  the  latter,  in 
remarking  on  the  opinion  of  those  who  suppose  Christ  to  have  spoken 
figuratively  on  this  occasion,  says  justly,  "  There  would  not  have  been 
so  much  difficulty  in  the  belief  if  there  had  not  been  more  in  the  mys- 
tery ;  there  would  not  have  been  so  much  offence  taken  at  a  memoran- 
dum, nor  so  much  stumbling  at  a  figure." 

t  So  far  were  the  ancient  Christians  from  supposing  that  our  Sa- 
viour instituted  so  momentous  and  wonderful  a  rite  without  any  an- 
nouncement, any  preparation  of  the  minds  of  his  followers  for  such  an 
event,  that  they  accounted  naturally  for  the  calmness  with  which  the 
Apostles  heard  the  awful  words  of  institution  by  the  previous  know- 
ledge of  the  nature  of  the  Sacrament  which  Christ  had,  in  his  discourse 
(John  vi.,)  communicated  to  them.  Thus-St.  Cfcryostom: — "  He  trans- 
ferred them  to  another  banquet,  a  banquet  most  tremendous,  saying, 
*  Take,  eat ;  this  is  my  body.'  How  was  it  that  they  were  not  seized 
with  terror,  when  they  heard  this  ?  Because  he  had  previously  dis- 
coursed with  them  at  large  upon  the  subject."— Homil.  lxxxii.  in 
Matt. 

%  "  Let  us  not  break  (said  Gaudentius)  that  most  solid  bone,  '  This  is 
my  body — this  is  my  blood;'  but  if  any  thing  remain  in  it  which  in- 
dividuals do  not  understand,  let  it  be  burnt  away  by  the  ardent  fire 
#f  Faith."—  Tractat,  ii.de  Pasch. 

10* 


(     1H     ) 

Gapharnaites  may  still  scoff,  and  loose  disciples  still 
murmur,  will  never  as  long  as  the  one  Catholic  Church 
endures,  pass  away. 


— *H9®  ©*«•— 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 


The  DocetEC,  the  earliest  heretics.— Denial  of  the  Real  Presence. — 
Simon  Magus  and  his  Mistress.— Simon  a  Protestant. — Delight  at 
the  discovery.— The  Ebonites. — The  Elcesaites. 

Thus  far  I  had  been  as  fully  successful  in  my  new  line 
of  search  as  I  could  desire, — having  found  that  great  and 
leading  principle  of  Protestantism,  the  right  of  private 
judgment,  starting,  as  it  were,  into  existence  almost  co- 
evally with  the  birth-hour  of  our  faith,  and  making  the 
first  trial  of  its  strength  against  the  living  words  of  our 
Saviour  himself.  We  have  next  to  consider  the  work- 
ings of  the  same  headstrong  principle,  as  manifested  in 
the  various  heresies  that  rose  against  his  Church ;  and  it 
is  not  a  little  remarkable  that  the  very  first  sect  of 
heretics  we  meet  with,  the  first  instance  of  dissent  from 
Catholicity  on  record,  should  turn  on  the  same  trying 
point  that  had  already  called  forth  the  "  How  "  of  the 
Kapharnaites, — that  point  which,  as  from  the  first  it  has 
been  a  stone  of  stumbling  to  the  weak  in  faith,  so  will  it 
continue,  I  have  no  doubt,  to  be  a  test  of  the  true  believer 
in  Christ's  words  to  the  last.  The  sect  with  whom  this 
Mother  Heresy  originated,  was  that  of  the  Docetae,  al- 
ready mentioned, — a  branch  of  the  Gnostic  Christians, 
nearly  as  old  as  Christianity  itself,  who  gave,  as  their  reason 
for  refusing  to  join  in  worship  with  the  orthodox,  that  they 
could  not  acknowledge  the  bodily  presence  of  Christ  in 
the  Eucharist* 


*  It  was  put  by  some  branches  of  the  Docetae  that  the  Eucharist  was  re- 
jected; the  greater  number  of  them  appear  to  have  celebrated  it,  but  only 
in  the  Protestant  sense,  as  a  mere  type  or  emblem. — "  Professant  tous 
le  Doketisme,  les  Gnostiques  qui  conservoient  la  Cene  n'enseignerent 
jamais  l'union  reelle  de  I'homme  avec  la  chair  ou  le  gang  du  Sauvcur; 


(     115     ) 

Thus  do  errors,  like  comets,  come  and  go,  while  Truth, 
like  the  sun,  remains  always  stationary.  Though  the 
grounds  on  which  these  heretics  denied  the  Real  Presence 
were  different,  of  course,  from  those  on  which  it  was  re- 
jected by  Protestants  fifteen  hundred  years  after,  yet  was 
the  result  they  arrived  at  precisely  the  same ; — insomuch, 
that  could  one  of  those  Gnostic  Christians  now  reappear 
upon  earth,  he  would  find  nothing  in  the  unreal  and 
fio-urative  Presence,  maintained,  by  Church  of  England 
divines,  that  could,  in  the  slightest  degree,  offend  his 
most  anti-corporeal  notions,  or  prevent  him  from  being 
conscientiously  a  partaker  of  their  Sacrament. 

At  last,  therefore,  I  had  the  pleasure  of  finding  myself 
in  something  like  good  Protestant  company ;  and,  know- 
ing that  to  the  heretic,  Simon  Magus,  is  attributed  the 
high  honour  of  being  the  head  of  the  whole  family  of 
Gnostic  Christians,  I  proceeded  forthwith  to  inform  my- 
self of  all  such  particulars  as  are  known  concerning  the 
parent  of  so  worthy  a  progeny.     Undoubtedly,  wherever 
the  presumption  of  human  judgment  is  the  theme,  this 
Arch-Heretic  has  a  paramount  claim  to  be  remembered, 
— seeing  that  he  pretended  to  understand  Christianity 
better  than  Christ   himself.     There  are,  indeed,  some 
curious  coincidences  between  his  career  and  that  of  the 
Arch-parent  of  the   Protestant  Reformation,  to  which, 
though  at  the  risk,  of  appearing  illiberal,  I  cannot  help 
adverting.     One  of  his  first  steps,  for  instance,  in  setting 
himself  up  against  Christ,  was  to  take  a  young  female 
companion  to  be  the  enlivenerof  his  ministry,— declaring 
(with  a  flight  beyond  Luther)  that  he  himself  was  the  in- 
carnate Power,  and  his  mistress  the  incarnate  Wisdom, 
of  God.*    Another  point  in  which  it  may  be  said  that  the 

cet  acte  qu'ils  celebraient  en  presence  de  leurs  catechumenes  et  qu'ils 
rangaient  dans  la  categorie  des  choses  ex-oteriques,  n'etoit  pour  eux 
que  Vcmbleme  de  leur  union  mystique  avec  un  etre  appartenant  au 
Plerome." — Hist,  du  Qnosticisme. 

To  the  Marcionites  of  the  next  age,  who  had  also  their  Eucharist,— 
though  believing,  wi  th  the  Docetee,  that  Christ's  body  was  but  apparent, 
it  was  urged  as~an  areument,  both  by  IrensBUS  and  Tertullian,  that  in 
owning  the  Sacrament  of  the  body  and  blood,  they  confuted  their  own 
opinion.  Will  it  still,  after  all  this,  be  contended  that  the  ancient 
Christians  did  not  believe  in  the  Reality  of  the  Presence  ? 

*  This  ladv's  name  was  Helena;  and,  among  the  various  steps  of 
that  descending  scale  of  transmigration  through  which  she  was  re- 
presented to  have  passed,  before  she  sank  into  the  capacity  of  Simon  s 
concubine,  she  had  had  the  honour,  it  was  said,  of  being,  in  her  time, 


(     116     ) 

two  Reformers  resembled  each  other  lay  in  the  alliance 
formed  by  both  with  "  the  nether  empire ;"  Simon  Magus 
being  well  known  to  have  had  demons  for  his  familiars,* 
and  the  famous  conference  between  Luther  and  his  Devil, 
on  the  subject  of  the  Mass,  being,  as  is  well  known,  one 
of  the  most  memorable  events  of  that  great  Reformer's 
life.f 

Having  satisfied  myself  thus  far,  as  to  the  practice  of 
Simon,  I  lost  no  time  in  inquiring  into  the  nature  of  his 
doctrine;  and  it  may  be  imagined  with  what  pleasure,  on 
opening  the  pages  of  the  historian,  Theodoret,  I  discovered 
the  following  passages  : — "  He  (Simon  Magus)  ordered 
those  who  believed  in  him  not  to  attend  to  the  Prophets, 
nor  to  fear  the  threats  of  the  Law,  but  to  do,  as  free  per- 
sons, whatever  they  wished;  for  that  they  would  obtain 
salvation,  not  by  Good  Works,  but  by  Grace."\  Here 
was,  at  least,  Protestantism,  in  its  fullest  perfection, — the 
very  principle,  in  fact,  on  which  the  authors  of  the  Re- 
formation first  started,  however  their  followers,  and  even 
some  of  themselves,  saw  reason  to  shrink  from  its  con- 
sequences afterwards ;  here  was  the  same  Antinomian 
spirit  which  dictated  the  declaration  of  the  Lutherans  in 
1557,  that  good  works  are  not  necessary  to  salvation  ;} — 
and  here  was  the  basis  also  of  Calvin's  inamissdble  grace, 
which  renders  even  the  worst  works  no  obstacle  to  the 
eternal  blessedness  of  the  Elect.     So  rejoiced  was  I  to 


ho  less  a  pefgon*ge  than  that  celebrated  Helen  whose  beauty  provoked 
t.e  War  of  Troy. 

*  Hence  the  5.1agia  Demoniaca,  or  Black  Art,  is  traced  to  Simon  as 
its  inventor.  It  is  but  fair,  however,  to  say  that  some  learned  persons 
liave  doubted  whether  the  Simon  mentioned  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
ivas  the  same  with  the  Heresiarch  of  the  Gnostic  Sects.  Among  others, 
the  learned  Frieslander,  Vitringa,  is  of  opinion  that  they  were  two  dif- 
ferent persons. 

t  It  is  amusiRg  to  observe  the  irritation  which  any  allusion  to  this 
famous  colloquy  is  sure  to  produce  in  the  temper  of  most  Protestant 
controvertisis.  Unable  to  get  rid  of  Luther's  own  statement  of  tlie 
matter,  all  that  they  have  for  it  is  to  deny  stoutly  that  this  conference 
had  any  influence  on  his  opinions  concerning  the  Mass.  We  are,  in- 
deed, assured  gravely  by  Claude  and  others,  that  Luther  had  both 
written  and  spoken  publicly  against  the  sacriti.ee  of  the  Mass  two  years 
before  any  of  these  suggestions  of  the  Devil  were  made  to  him. 

wetmQt&s. — Haer.  Fab. 

§  At  the  conference  held,  by  order  of  Charles  V.,  at  Worms.  We 
know  that  Amsdorf,  a  warm  disciple  of  Luther,  even  went  so  far  as 
to  maintain  that  Good  IVorte  were  an  obstacle  to  salvation. 


(     W     ) 

light,  at  last,  on  a  sample  of  genuine  Protestantism, — 
from  the  same  source,  too,  where  the  denial  of  Christ's 
bodily  Presence  originated* — that  I  could  not  help  break- 
ing out  in  the  language  of  Ulysses,  when  he,  at  length, 
found  himself  in  sight  of  Ithaca,  after  all  his  wanderings, — 

Ao-7ra.<r lug  tzov  cvJW  DtoLvo/uctt. 

or,  as  I  translated  it,  at  the  moment,  in  my  rapture, — 

Hail,  Faith  of  Protestants! — thou  home 
To  which  so  long  I've  sigh'd  to  come. 
To  seek  thee  need  no  longer  plague  us, 
Thou'rt  found,  at  last,  in Simon  Magus. 

It  may  be  suspected,  perhaps,  that  one  of  the  chief  in- 
gredients of  my  satisfaction  at  this  discovery,  was  the  ma- 
licious pleasure  it  gave  to  certain  Popish  feelings  still  stir- 
ring within  me,  at  being  thus  able  to  trace  two  of  the  most 
elemental  and  vital  doctrines  of  Protestantism  to  such  a 
source  as  Simon  Magus;  and  I  had  myself,  I  confess,  cer- 
tain misgivings  as  to  the  mixture  of  some  such  leaven 
with  my  joy.  Resolving,  therefore,  to  be  generous,  I  re- 
pressed at  once  all  unworthy  triumph,  and  thinking  it 
better  even  to  go  without  Protestantism  altogether,  than 
to  come  by  it  in  this  suspicious  and  disreputable  manner, 
I  dismissed  Simon  Magus  entirely  from  my  mind,  and 
hastened  on  in  quest  of  some  more  respectable  creed- 
master. 

Never  yet  has  there  been  an  extreme  opinion  started 
in  this  world,  that  there  was  not  an  opposite  extreme 
ready  to  start  at  the  same  time.  Thus,  to  the  Docetse, 
who  held  that  Christ  was  entirely  divine,  there  was  op- 
posed a  counter-heresy,  that  of  the  Ebionites,  who  held, 
with  the  Protestant  Unitarians,  that  he  was  merely  hu- 
man. It  was,  indeed,  by  dividing  the  double  nature  of 
our  Saviour  between  them,  that  these  two  sects  contrived 
to  make  out  their  two  heresies, — the  Docetse  allowing 

*  From  Simon  the  doctrine  of  the  Docetse,  or  Phantastics,  took  its 
origin: — "  Q-uoniam  Christum  Dominum  (says  Le  Grand,  under  the 
head  of  Simon)  non  veram  carnem  assumpsisse,  nee  ejusdem  cum 
nostra  nature  esse  profitebatur,  ejusdem  in  Eucharistia  prcesentiam 
coniiteri  nolehat.— Ignatius  ap.  Theodcret.  Dial.  3." 


(    lis    ) 

that  he  was  God,  but  not  man,*  and  the  Ebionites  con- 
tending" that  he  was  man,  not  God. 

Akin  to  the  Ebionites,  f  in  maintaining  the  simple  hu- 
manity of  the  Saviour,  were  the  Elcesaites,  a  sect  of  he- 
retics, half  Jews,  half  Christians,  and  (if  not  very  much 
misrepresented,)  entire  maniacs.  As  if  to  make  up  to 
Christ  for  depriving  him  of  his  divinity,  they  attributed 
to  him  a  human  form  ninety-six  miles  long,  and  twenty- 
four  broad;  and  this  measurement  they  considered  them- 
selves authorized  to  make  by  the  words  of  St.  Paul  (Eph. 
iii.  18,)  where  he  exhorts  Christians  to  "  be  able  to  com- 
prehend with  all  saints,  what  is  the  breadth,  and  length, 
and  depth,  and  height,1'  of  Christ.  The  Holy  Ghost  they 
supposed  to  be  a  female,  and  of  much  the  same  dimen- 
sions as  Christ ;  and  the  learned  reason  they  gave  for  this 
peculiar  notion  of  the  Spirit's  sex,  was,  that  Raouah,  the 
term  in  Hebrew  for  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  of  the  feminine 
gender;  besides  (added  these  reasoning  Christians,)  the 
inconvenience  of  having  two  Fathers  for  Christ,  is,  by 
this  interpretation,  avoided. 

Notwithstanding  these  blasphemous  absurdities,  the  de- 
scendants of  the  man  from  whom  the  sect  was  named,  con- 
tinued through  a  long  course  of  time  to  be  honoured  as 
44  the  Blessed  Race;"  and,  so  late  as  the  Reign  of  Valens, 
we  hear  of  two  sisters  of  this  hallowed  breed  being  held 
in  such  extravagant  veneration  by  the  people,  that  not 
only  the  dust  from  their  feet,  but  even  the  spittle  from 
their  mouths  were  caught  up  with  enthusiasm  by  the 
crowd,  and  preserved  in  boxes  as  a  charm  against  all  ills. 

*  Some  of  those  Gnostics,  who  held  that  Christ  wore  only  the  ap- 
pearance of  man,  got  over  the  difficulties  of  the  crucifixion,  as  they 
thought,  by  saying,  that,  on  the  way  to  Mount  Calvary,  he  changed 
shapes  with  Simon  of  Cyrene,  who  carried  the  cross,  and  that  Simon 
was  the  person  really  crucified  by  the  Jews,  while  Christ  stood  by, 
invisibly,  laughing  at  their  mistake. 

t  It  was  the  opinion  of  the  Ebionites  that  God  had  given  the  empire 
of  all  things  to  two  persons,  Christ  and  the  Devil;  that  the  Devil  had 
full  power  over  the  present  world,  and  Christ  over  the  world  to  come.— 
FUury,  Hist.  Ecclesiast. 


(     119     ) 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Scriptur.il  learning  of  the  Gnostics— their  theories.— Account  of  the 
system  of  the  Valentinians. — Celestial  Family.— Sophia — her  daugh- 
ter.— Birth  of  the  Demiurge.— Bardesanes. 

To  those  who  have  observed  how  invariably  through- 
out the  history  of  Christianity,  the  multiplication  of  here- 
sies, schisms,  and  innovations  in  faith  has  been,  at  all 
times,  in  direct  proportion  to  the  diffusion  of  the  Scrip- 
tures among  the  people,  it  will  afford  no  surprise  to  learn 
that  the  Gnostic  heretics,  by  whom  such  a  flood  of  fan- 
tastic errors  was  let  loose  in  the  first  ages,  were  of  all 
the  Christians  of  that  period  the  most  versed  in  Scrip- 
ture, and  the  most  laborious  in  quest  of  texts  to  suit  their 
mischievous  purposes.*  So  industrious,  indeed,  are  they 
known  to  have  been  in  this  line  of  research,  that;  not- 
withstanding the  blasphemies  and  extravagances  with 
which  their  writings  abounded,  Erasmus  mourns,  as  a 
biblical  scholar,  over  the  loss  of  their  works,  on  account 
of  the  wonderful  stores  of  scriptural  knowledge  which 
they  contained. 

To  such  as  hold,  in  direct  opposition  to  the  Catholics, 
that  the  Sacred  Volume  cannot  be  too  widely  thrown 
open, — who  call  out  for  the  Bible,  the  whole  Bible,  and 
nothing  but  the  Bible,  for  all  classes  of  readers,  it  may 
not  be  uninstructive  to  produce  some  examples  of  the  use 
heretofore  made  of  this  privilege,  and  more  particularly 
to  show  what  were  the  recondite  truths  and  mysteries 
which  those  learned  searchers  of  the  Sacred  Volume,  the 
Gnostics,  professed  to  find  in  its  pages. 

To  enter  into  any  detailed  exposition  of  the  various 
systems  which  these  heretics  put  forth, — each  new  sys- 
tem but  presenting  a  different  modification  of  the  same 
Magian  theory  of  the  Two  antagonist  Principles,! — would 
be  a  task  far  beyond  my  present  purpose.     The  solution 

*  "  II  ne'est  guerc  d'opinion  dans  leurs  riches  theories  qu'ils  n'aient 
t ache  d'appuyer  de  quelq ues  passages  des  Ecritures."— Uistoire  du  Chios- 
ticisme. 

t  These  principles  they  called  the  Two  Roots:  fa  Pi&C  oi£*9  otnh 
Z*v  Kou  *yt$nv, — Dial,  de  recta  fide. 


(     120     ) 

of  the  great  problem  of  the  Origin  of  Evil  was  the  object 
at  which  all  these  elaborate,  and,  in  some  few  instances, 
poetical  inventions  aimed;  and,  in  most  of  them,  the  the- 
ory of  a  Good  and  an  Evil  Principle  is  combined  with  the 
notion,  also  Eastern,  of  certain  spiritual  existences,  or 
iEons,  supposed  to  have  proceeded  by  emanation  from  the 
one  Supreme  Fountain  of  Being.*  In  the  system  of  Va- 
lentinus,  however,  of  which  I  am  about  to  give  some  ac- 
count, this  process  of  emanation  was,  under  the  sanction 
of  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  Sonship,  exchanged  for  that  of 
Generation;  and  how  prodigal  was  the  use  made  by  the 
heresiarch  of  this  orthodox  precedent  the  following  sketch 
of  his  system,  collected  from  Irenseus  and  other  writers 
on  ancient  heresies,  will  show. 

He  supposed  the  unknown  and  inaccessible  Father  to 
have  dwelt,  from  all  eternity,  in  silence  and  repose,  ac- 
companied only  by  a  certain  Power,  or  Intelligence,  that 
served  him  as  consort,  and  by  which,  or  whom,  in  the 
fulness  of  time,  he  produced  a  son  and  daughter,  bearing 
the  names  of  Nous  and  Aletheia.  This  pair,  in  their  turn, 
gave  being  to  another  couple  called  Logos  and  Zoe,  and 
these,  again,  to  a  fourth  pair,  Anthropos  and  Ecclesia. 
All  these  eight  iEons  he  pretended  to  find  expressly 
named  in  the  opening  verses  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  John. 

This  process  of  spiritual  procreation  having  been  thus 
carried  on,  couple  after  couple,  through  fifteen  genera- 
tions, the  number  of  thirty  spiritual  beings,  or  iEons, 
came  at  last  to  be  collected,  forming  altogether  that  Ple- 
roma,  or  Plenitude,  of  spiritual  existence,  to  which  St. 
Paul,  said  these  heretics,  clearly  alludes  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Colossians,  i.  19, — "  For  it  pleased  the  Father  that  in 
him  all  Fulness  should  dwell."  The  exact  number,  too, 
of  Thirty  /Eons  is,  said  they,  manifestly  figured  by  the 
thirty  years  of  his  life  during  which  Christ  remained 
concealed  from  the  world. 

Of  the  last  born  of  the  fifteen  couples  that  composed 
this  celestial  family,  the  female,  whose  name  was  Sophia, 
or  Wisdom,  happened,  by  some  accident  or  other,  to  slip 
out  of  the  Pleroma  into  infinite  space ;  and  there,  alone 
and  bewildered,  would  infallibly,  it  is  supposed,  have  been 

*  This  perfect  JEon,  existing  before  all  things,  they  described  aa 
dwelling  on  some  "invisible  and  unnameable  heights."  &  slopxtu; 


(     121     ) 

lost,  had  not  Horus,  who  seems  to  have  acted  as  a  sort  of 
watchman  of  the  Pleroma,  gone  in  quest  of  the  stray  Spi- 
rit, and  brought  her  safe  back  again.  She  had,  however, 
during  her  short  absence  from  home,  given  birth  to  a 
daughter,  who,  though  spiritual  like  her  mother,  was, 
from  the  peculiar  circumstances  under  which  she  was 
born,  and  her  exclusion  from  the  bright  region  of  the 
Pleroma,  unformed  and  degenerate.  The  fall  of  this 
twelfth  iEon  (Sophia)  is,  they  allege,  marked  out  in  the 
fall  of  Judas,  the  twelfth  apostle,  as  well  as  by  the  disease 
of  the  woman,  in  Matthew  ix.  20,  which  had  lasted  twelve 
years,  and  which  the  power  of  Christ,  like  that  of  Horus, 
stopped  and  healed. 

In  the  mean  time,  Nous, — by  the  especial  foresight  of 
the  Father,  who  wished  to  guard  against  any  diminution 
of  the  JEon  family  by  the  occurrence  of  such  another  ac- 
cident as  had  happened  to  the  Sophia, — added  a  new 
couple  of  Beings,  male  and  female,  to  their  community, 
namely,  Christ  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  by  whom  the  secu- 
rity of  the  Pleroma,  and  the  union  of  its  heavenly  occu- 
pants, was  ratified.  From  Christ  they  all  learned  to  know 
the  Father,  or,  rather,  were  taught  to  content  themselves 
with  knowing  that  he  is  incomprehensible ;  while,  by  the 
Holy  Spirit,  they  were  instructed  how  to  laud  this  great 
Being,  and  to  dwell  together  in  perfect  unity  and  repose. 
In  testimony  of  their  gratitude  for  this  state  of  blessedness, 
the  iEons  agreed,  with  the  full  consent  of  the  Father, 
to  produce,  among  themselves,  by  joint  contribution,  Je- 
sus, or  the  Saviour, — each  furnishing  towards  the  pro- 
duction of  this  new  Being  whatever  was  most  exquisite 
in  their  own  natures,  so  as  to  render  him  the  flower  of  the 
whole  Pleroma,  and  hence  is  it  (said  the  Valentinians,) 
that  St.  Paul  declares  of  Jesus,  the  Saviour,  that  "in  him 
dwelleth  all  the  Fulness  of  the  Godhead. 

While  within  the  Pleroma  all  this  joy  prevailed,  in  the 
dismal  region  without,  the  poor  offspring  of  Sophia  (her- 
self distinguished  by  the  name  of  Sophia  Achamoth)  was 
left,  a  formless  abortion,  to  wander  through  the  void. 
Once,  pitying  her  distress,  Christ  stretched  forth  his  cross 
to  aid  her ;  but  though  his  touch  gave  form  and  life,  it 
imparted  not  science,  and,  accordingly,  still  was  the  lone 
outcast  abandoned  to  her  fate,  experiencing  all  the  mise- 
ry of  desire  without  knowledge,  and  left  a  prey  to  the  va« 


(     122     ) 

rious  passions  of  sadness,  fear,  and  anguish,  which  have 
since  become,  the  lot  of  the  humanity  that  sprung  from 
her. 

In  this  state  of  suffering,  she,  at  last,  turned  to  him 
who  gave  her  life,  and  that  one  movement  of  conversion 
changed  her  whole  fate.  Sent  graciously  down  by  Christ 
to  her  aid,  the  Saviour  came  attended  by  his  angels,  and 
releasing  her  from  the  yoke  of  the  passions,  without  alto- 
gether extinguishing  them,  bestowed  upon  her  at  last  the 
long-desired  gift  of  knowledge.  Her  look  of  joy,  we  are 
told,  at  this  deliverance  was  felt  through  all  Chaos,  and 
from  that  first  smile  of  Sophia  Achamoth  the  origin  of 
light  is  to  be  dated.  From  this  moment,  too,  began  that 
series  of  creative  and  pro-creative  operations  by  which 
this  world  and  all  that  it  contains  was  produced.  The  va- 
rious offsprings,  spiritual,  psychic,  and  material,  to  which 
Sophia  and  her  new  friends,  the  angels,  gave  birth  be- 
tween them,  it  is  not  easy  to  describe  and  still  less  so  to 
understand.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  out  of  this  commerce 
sprung  that  inferior  God,  or  Demiurge,  by  whom,  ac- 
cording to  all  the  Gnostic  sects,  this  visible  world  was 
created. 

Such  was  the  fanciful  account  given  by  Valentinus  of 
the  events  that  happened,  as  he  supposed,  in  the  world 
of  the  Unknown  Father,  before  the  creation  of  this ; — 
such  the  wild  tissue  of  fiction  which  its  inventor  boasted 
to  have  derived  from  the  secret  communications  of  Christ 
himself  to  his  apostles,  and  which  was,  strange  to  say, 
adopted  by  a  large  portion  of  the  Christian  world,  extend- 
ing even  into  Gaul  and  Spain,  during  the  second  and 
third  centuries.* 

Had  we  only  the  vague  and  forced  applications  of 
Scripture  by  which  the  Valentinians  supported  this  fan- 
tastic theology  to  assist  us  in  judging  of  the  Gnostics,!  as 
interpreters  of  Holy  Writ,  our  opinion  of  their  ingenuity 

*  It  was  not  till  towards  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  that  the 
Valentinians  may  be  said  to  have  dwindled  away.  Gregory  of  Nazi- 
anzum,  who  died  towards  the  close  of  the  fourth,  represents  them  as 
then  among  the  almost  extinguished  sects. 

t  "Ces  allegories  et  ces  personifications  se  comprenaient  encore 
parfaitement  au  second  siecle  de  notre  ere  ;  cependant,  des  que  les  doc- 
teurs  orthodoxes  se  furent  separes  distinctement  des  partisans  de  la 
Gnose,  ils  leur  en  firent  des  objets  de  reproche  ;  et  S.  Ephrem  ne  rap- 
porte  qu'en  tremblant  le  blaspheme  de  Barclesanes,  qui  csoit  donner 
deu    filles  au  Saint  Esprit."— Histoirc  du  Gnoslieisme. 


(     123     ) 

in  this  line  must  have  fallen  far  short  of  their  reputation. 
Of  the  speculations,  however,  of  some  of  their  other  sects 
enough  lias  been  preserved, — more  particularly  of  the 
Marcionites,  on  the  subject  of  the  Old  Testament, — to 
show  that,  in  applying  their  wild  theories  to  Scripture, 
they  were  at  least  sufficiently  acute  to  be  mischievous ; 
and,  above  all,  to  show  at  what  an  early  period  an  open- 
ing- was  made  for  infidelity  by  the  adoption  of  that  proud, 
Protestant  principle,  the  right  of  Private  Judgment,  and 
the  desertion,  in  consequence,  of  those  only  true  and  safe 
guides,  the  Apostolical  Traditions  and  the  Authority  of 
the  Church. 

Through  all  the  other  Gnostic  sects  the  same  system 
iEonogony  prevailed,  the  points  of  difference  between 
their  theories  lying  more  in  the  details  than  in  the  prin- 
ciple. Thus  Bardesanes,  though  adopting  the  same  no- 
tion as  to  the  succession  of  the  iEons  by  syzygies  or  cou- 
ples, yet  so  far  changed  the  order  of  their  genealogy  as 
to  make  Christ  the  immediate  son  of  the  Father,  by  that 
companion  whom  he  had,  in  the  silence  of  his  solitude, 
created  unto  himself.  Next  after  Christ,  too,  in  the  order 
of  being,  came  the  sister  and  spouse  of  Christ,  the  Holy 
Ghost ;  and  a  union  having  taken  place  between  these 
spiritual  personages,  two  daughters,  we  are  told,  named 
Maio  and  Sabscho,  were  their  offspring. 


—  «*©®  ©4«*«— 


CHAPTER  XXV. 


The  Gnostics,  believers  in  Two  Gods. — The  Creator  and  the  Unknown 
Father.— Their  charges  against  the  Jehovah  of  the  Jews.— Marcion 
— his  Antitheses. — Apelles. — Belief  in  Two  Saviours. — Hatred  of 
the  Jewish  Code.— Ophites. — Marriage  of  Jesus  with  Sophia  Acha- 
moth. 

However  differing  from  each  other  in  the  superstruc- 
tures of  their  respective  theories,  there  was  one  funda- 
mental principle  upon  which  Valentinians,  Marcionites, 
Basilidians,  &c,  all  built,  namely,  that  the  God  of  the 
Old  Testament,  whom  they  held  to  be  the  Creator  of  this 


(      124     ) 

World,  is  a  wholly  different  being  from  the  God  of  the 
New ; — the  latter  being-,  according  to  them,  the  Unknown 
and  unapproachable  Father,  of  whom  Christ  was  the  son, 
and  by  whom,  in   his  mercy  and  goodness,  Christ  was 
sent  down  to  earth,  to  repair  the  evils  which  the  Demi- 
urge, or  Creator,  had  caused.     In  support  of  this  bold 
theory  they  refer  to  the  contrast,  both  in  spirit  and  pre- 
cept, which  is  so  strikingly,  they  allege,  exhibited  be- 
tween the  Law  and  the  Gospel,  and  maintain  it  to  be  im- 
possible to  believe  that  both  could  come  from  the  same 
hand.  While  the  Being  revealed  by  the  Saviour,  said  they, 
is  a  God  of  Mercy  and  Love,  the  Jehovah,  or  Demiurge, 
was  a  God  ignorant,  unjust,  vindictive,  and  inconsistent. 
Of  the  ignorance  of  the  Jehovah,  one  of  the  instances 
they  give  is  his  not  knowing  where  Adam  was,  when  he 
sought  him  in  the  garden,  nor  whether  he  had  yet  eaten 
of  the  forbidden  tree.     "  And  the  Lord  God  called  unto 
Adam,  and  said  unto  him,  Where  art  thou  1  *  *  *  *  hast 
thou  eaten  of  the  tree  ?w     But,  though  most  of  their  ar- 
ticles of  impeachment  against  the  Creator  are  either  thus 
frivolous,  or  fanciful,  there  are  some  that  have  appeared 
sufficiently  acute  and  searching  to  be  thought  worthy  of 
revival  by  modern  infidels.     For  instance,  his  incapacity, 
they  say,  as  a  Creator,  was  manifestly  proved  by  his 
having  so  ill-performed  his  task  in  creating  Man,  as  to 
be  forced  to  repent  him  of  his  work,  and  even  to  resolve 
on  destroying  all  living  things  (Genesis,  vi.  6,  7.)     The 
advice  given  by  him  to  his  chosen  people,  on  their  de- 
parture from  Egypt,  to  despoil  the  Egyptians  of  their 
valuables,  under  the  pretence  of  borrowing  them,  was 
the  ground  of  another  of  those  daring  charges  against  the 
God  of  the  Jews,  in  which  these  heretics  but  anticipated 
the  profane  scoffs  of  Voltaire  and  his  followers.     In  ridi- 
culous consistency,  too,  with  the  name  K*$-*/w,  or  Puri- 
tans, which,  like  some  modern  Protestants,  a  few  of  these 
sects  assumed,  one  of  the  minor  faults  they  objected  to 
the  Jehovah,  was,  his  habit  of  swearing,  and — what  ap- 
pears to  have  been,  in  their  eves,  an  aggravation  of  the 
offence— swearing  by  himself.     The  only  merit,  indeed, 
they  seemed  inclined  to  allow  to  this  Being  was  that  of 
candour  as  to  his  own  evil-doings, — he  himself  having,  as 
they  said,  acknowledged  through  his  organ,  Isaiah  (xly, 
?,)  that  darkness  and  evil  were  the  work  of  his  hands* 


(     125     ) 

It  was  in  support  of  this  peculiar  view  of  the  two  dis- 
pensations that  the  Gnostic  chief,  Marcion,  exerted  par- 
ticularly, as  I  have  already  said,  his  acumen  and  zeal. 
To  show  how  opposite  were  the  characters  of  the  Jewish 
and  the  Christian  God,  and  how  much  at  variance  with 
each  other,  in  spirit,  are  the  Law  and  the  Gospel,  this 
heretic  drew  up  what  he  called  "  Antitheses,"*  in  which 
the  precepts  of  the  two  codes  are  brought  in  contrast 
with  each  other.  Observe,  said  he,  the  difference ; — by  the 
Creator  the  principle  of  fierce  retaliation  is  inculcated, 
"  eye  for  eye  and  tooth  for  tooth"  (Exod.  xxi.  24,)  while 
by  the  Saviour  we  are  forbidden  to  return  even  an  insult 
(Luke  vi.  29.)  Jesus  cured  the  blind  (John  ix. ;) — David, 
on  the  contrary,  hated  and  ill-treated  them  (2  Samuel  v. 
8.)  The  messenger  of  the  Supreme  God  suffered  little 
children  to  come  unto  him,  and  blessed  them  (Mark  x. 
14.  16 ;) — the  messenger  of  the  Creator  cursed  them,  and 
gave  them  to  be  devoured  by  bears  (2  Kings  ii.  24.) 

With  some  ingenuity,  too,  he  cited,  as  confirmatory  of 
his  doctrine,  the  following  verse  from  St.  Paul's  Second 
Epistle  to  the  Corinthians : — "  In  whom  the  God  of  this 
world  hath  blinded  the  minds  of  them  which  believe  not, 
lest  the  light  of  the  glorious  Gospel  of  Christ,  who  is  the 
image  of  God,  should  shine  unto  them."  By  "  the  God 
of  this  world"  is  to  be  understood,  said  Marcion,  the  De- 
miurge, or  Creator,  in  contradistinction  to  the  good  God, 
Gr  Father  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  the  God  of  the  Chris- 
tians. So  dangerously  strong  in  his  favour  was  this  pas- 
sage considered,  that,  in  order  to  evade  its  force,  Ter- 
tullian  and  Irenseus  were  for  putting  a  comma  after 
"God,"  so  as  to  separate  it  from  the  words,  "of  this 
world,"  and  thus  strain  the  structure  of  the  sentence  to 
the  following  meaning : — "  Tn  whom  God  had  blinded  the 
minds  of  the  unbelievers  of  this  world." 

That  Christ  himself  meant  to  establish  an  opposition 
between  the  old  and  new  order  of  things  appears  clearly, 
this  heretic  said,  from  his  discourses  against  the  Law  and 


*  It  would  appear  that  this  sort  of  antithetical  comparison  was  a 
favourite  weapon  with  the  heretics  even  in  St.  Pauls  time,  who 
warns  Timothy  to  avoid  the  dLvrftirztz  <rn;  -^ivfavo/ucu  yy/axnux; — 
**  the  antitheses  of  the  falsely-named  Gnosis,  or  Gnosticism  ;"  for  such, 
it  appears  to  me,  ought  to  be  the  translation  of  the  words,  and  not,  as 
now,  "  oppositions  of  science  falsely  so  called," 

11* 


(     IS6    ) 

the  Prophets,  and  such  allusions  to  the  incompatibility  ot 
the  two  dispensations  as  are  conveyed  in  those  sayings, 
V  no  man  putteth  wine  in  old  bottles,"  and  "  no  man  can 
Serve  two  masters."  A  similar  allusion  to  the  Law  and 
the  Gospel  he  professed  to  find  in  the  words  of  the  Apos- 
tle, "  the  letter  killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  life,"  which 
mean  clearly,  he  maintained,  that  the  code  of  Moses  left 
man  in  death,  ignorance,  and  vice,  while  the  sublime  re- 
velation  of  the  Christos  imparts  the  Pneuma,  or  breath* 
of  Divine  life-. 

He  found  also,  as  he  thought,  a  precedent  for  his  anti* 
thetical  theory  in  the  language  held  by  St.  Paul  to  the 
Judaizing  Christians,  and  in  the  contrast  drawn  by  that 
Apostle  between  the  Jewish  and  Christian  Dispensations, 
as  being,  the  former  but  a  type,  the  latter  the  substance; 
— the  one  transitory  and  peculiar,  the  other  universal 
and  permanent. 

When  once,  in  religion,  a  departure  from  the  right  line 
commences,  each  succeeding  step  but  increases  the  de- 
viation ;-=—and  this  was  remarkably  exemplified  in  the 
course  of  all  the  successors  of  these  ancient  heresiarchs-. 
Apelles,  one  of  the  disciples  of  Marcion,  improved  upon 
the  daring  criticism  of  his  master,  and,  in  a  work  similar 
to  the  Antitheses,  to  which  he  gave  the  name  of  Syllo- 
gisms) not  only  brought  forth  again  all  the  alleged  con* 
tradictions  between  the  Old  and  New  Testaments, 
but  laboured  to  point  out  such  inconsistencies  and  contra- 
rieties between  different  parts  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures 
themselves,  as,  if  proved,  must  have  considerably  weak- 
ened, if  not  entirely  overturned  their  authority** 

One  of  the  most  instructive  lessons  we  learn,  perhaps, 
from  history  is  to  know  that  the  same  principles,  when- 
ever acted  upon,  wrill  be  found,  almost  invariably,  to  lead 
to  the  same  consequences.  Just  such  results  as  we  see 
here  brought  about  by  the  presumption  of  individual  judg- 
ment and  the  rejection  of  authority  again  flowed  from 
the  unbridled  outbreak  of  the  same  restive  principles  at 


*  The  very  same  system  has  "been  pursTied  by  Voltaire,  in  his  at* 
%acks  on  the  Old  Testament  (See  Diction.  Philosoph.  &c. :) — "  En  effet, 
{says  the  author  of  the  Histoire  du,  Onosticis7ne)  Marcion  artieula  con- 
tre  les  codes  et  les  institutions  Judaiques  plus  d'accusations  ou,  si  Ton 
Veut,  plus  de  blasphemes  qu'il  n'en  est  sorti  de  la  bouchy  des  libres 
ptn-srurs  su  des  csprits  forts  du  l£e  siecle  " 


{     127     ) 

the  Reformation ;  heresy  being,  in  both  cases,  the  pioneer 
of  infidelity,  and  the  fancied  triumphs  of  reason  but  end- 
ing, at  last,  in  the  death  of  all  faith. 

Having  established  two  Gods,  these  Gnostic  heretics 
could  not  be  long  in  finding  out  that  their  system  would 
be  incomplete  and  inconsistent  without  having  also  two 
Saviours; — the  attributes  of  the  promised  Messiah  of  the 
Jews,  being,  according  to  their  view,  wholly  different  from 
those  that  characterized  the  Son  and  Messenger  of  the 
Supreme  Father.  The  one  had  been  announced  as  a 
conqueror,  and  as  the  restorer  of  the  Jewish  Empire,  while 
the  other  came  to  bring  peace  and  salvation  to  all  people.* 
The  Saviour  of  the  Demiurge  was  (according  to  the 
Creator's  prophet,  Isaiah,)  to  be  called  Emmanuel,  which 
was  not,  said  they,  the  name  of  Christ;  and  while  the 
former  had  been  promised  as  the  Son  of  David,  the  latter  al- 
together disclaimed  the  relationship.  The  solution  which 
they  gave  of  the  whole  difficulty  was,  that  the  real  Sa- 
viour, unknown  and  unannounced  as  he  had  been  to  the 
world,  was  not  unwilling  to  take  advantage  of  the  hope 
•of  a  Messiah  which  the  Prophets  of  the  Creator  had 
diffused  among  mankind,  in  order  that  by  passing  himself 
off  as  the  Deliverer  expected  so  long,  he  might  the  more 
effectually  perform  the  great  mission  intrusted  to  him  and 
emancipate  this  world  from  the  yoke  of  the  Demiurge. 
Leaving,  therefore,  the  supreme  Heavens  of  his  Father, 
and  traversing  those  of  the  Creator,  he  assumed,  on  ap- 
proaching earth,  the  outward  semblance  of  a  man  (with- 
out having  recourse,  said  they,  to  the  unworthy  expedient 
of  human  parentage  and  an  incarnation)  and  made  his  ap- 
pearance, for  the  first  time,  among  men,  in  the  syna- 
gogue of  Capernaum,  in  the  fifteenth  year  of  tbe  reign 
ofTiberius. 

Entertaining  notions  so  dark  of  the  God  of  the  Israelites, 
and  of  his  Code,  it  was  but  consistent  in  these  heretics  to 
nold  all  connected  with  the  Jewish  Dispensation  in  the 
utmost  horror.  To  such  a  length  was  this  antipathy 
carried  by  them,  that  the  Marcionits,  who  made  it  a  rule 


*  The  Rabbins  supposed,  in  the  same  manner,  that  there  would  tre 
two  Messiahs :  the  one  poor,  miserable,  and  devoted  to  death  ;  the  other, 
\he  restorer  of  the  Jewish  Empire.  To  Josephus,  too,  has  been  at- 
tributed the  absurdity  of  believing  that  Christ  was  one  Messiah  a«^ 
the  Emperor  Vespasian  the  ot£er> 


(      *#8     ) 

to  fast  on  a  Saturday,  professed  to  do  so  from  a  mere  feel- 
ing- of  spite  to  the  Creator  who  had  commanded  the  Jews 
to  hold  a  feast  on  that  day ;  and  a  branch  of  the  Gnostics, 
called  Antitactse,  did  not  hesitate  to  acknowledge  that 
they  infringed  the  commands  of  the  Jewish  God,  solely 
because  they  were  his. 

But  the  sect  which  most  systematically,  and,  consider- 
ing the  principle  on  which  it  was  founded,  most  con- 
sistently followed  up  these  views  of  the  Old  Testament, 
was  that  of  the  Ophites,  or  Serpentinians,  by  whom  all 
persons  who  had,  since  the  creation  of  the  world,  been 
known  to  have  suffered  for  their  opposition  to  the  Creator's 
will,  were  regarded  with  affection  and  veneration  as 
victims  of  an  unjust  God,  and  as  martyrs  to  the  hope  of  a 
better  order  of  things  under  the  Supreme  Being-  and  his 
son.  Cain,  for  instance,  was  revered  by  them  with  peculiar 
fervour,  and  over  the  ruins  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  they 
mourned  most  religiously.  But  the  great  object  of  their 
worship,  and  that  from  which  they  derived  their  name, 
was  no  other  than  the  original  Serpent  himself,  who,  so 
far  from  being,  as  the  world  supposes,  a  tempter  and  de- 
ceiver, was,  according  to  these  dreamers,  man's  earliest 
and  best  benefactor.  The  command  given  to  our  first 
parents  not  to  eat  of  the  Tree  of  Knowledge  was  but  a 
device,  said  they,  planned  by  the  jealous  Jehovah  to  de- 
tach man  from  his  protectress,  the  heavenly  Sophia,  and 
debar  him  from  all  knowledge  of  celestial  things.  That 
good  iEon,*  however,  ever  watchful  over  her  charge, 
resolved  to  baffle  the  Creator,  and  sending  Ophis,  one  of 
her  Genii,  in  the  form  of  a  serpent,  into  Paradise,  ordered 
him  to  persuade  Adam  to  break  this  capricious  law,  and 
to  eat  of  the  fruit  that  would  open  to  him  all  heavenly 
knowledge.  According  to  some  of  the  Ophites,  too,  this 
Serpent  was  no  other  than  the  Saviour  himself, — as  was 
manifest,  they  said,  from  the  life-giving  effects  attributed 
to  the  brazen  serpent  in  Numbers,  xxi.  9,  and  the  ap- 
plication of  that  type  to  Jesus,  in  John,  iii.  14. 

*  Among  the  titles  given  by  the  Valentinians  to  their  Sophia  was 
that  of  K.yg/o;,  or  Lord  ;  and  Tertullian  ridicules  them  with,  perhaps, 
somewhat  more  facetiousness  than  beseems  a  grave  Father  of  the 
Church,  on  the  confusion  which,  in  this,  and  in  other  instances,  they 
fell  into,  respecting  her  sex: — "  lta,"  he  says,  "  omnem  illi  honorem 
contulerunt  fceminae  puto  et  barbain,— ne  dixerim  cetera. ""—Ada.. 
Valentin. 


(    l&*    ) 

On  the  same  principle,  and  with  no  less  daring  ab* 
surdity,  did  a  branch  of  this  sect  single  out  Judas  from 
all  the  Apostles  of  our  Lord,  as  the  only  one  sufficiently 
deep  in  the  counsels  of  Heaven,  to  know  of  what  infinite 
importance  it  was  that  Christ  should  be  sacrificed  by  the 
Jews.  Apprized  secretly,  said  they,  by  the  heavenly 
Sophia  that  the  consequence  of  this  death  would  be  the 
downfall,  for  ever,  of  the  Zabaoth,  or  Jewish  God,  he  felt 
himself  bound  to  accelerate  so  blessed  a  result,  and  thus, 
by  betraying  his  Master,  helped  to  save  mankind.*  For 
this  insight  into  the  true  nature  of  the  transaction  they 
professed  to  be  indebted  to  a  Gospel  written  by  Judas, 
which  had  descended  to  their  sect,  and  was  the  only  one, 
in  their  opinion,  worthy  of  any  credit,  f 

With  respect  to  the  ultimate  result  that  was  to  arise 
out  of  all  this  complex  agency  which  the  Gnostics  sup- 
posed to  be  at  work  in  the  supernatural  world,  the  con- 
summation to  which  the  Valentinians  looked  forward,  as 
the  crowning  of  the  whole,  was  that  finally  all  spiritual 
creatures  shall  be  restored  to  their  primitive  nature,  and, 
reaching  at  last  the  full  maturity  of  perfection,  shall  as- 
cend together  into  the  Pleroma,  there  to  dwell  with  the 
spiritual  mates  allotted  to  them,  following,  in  this  respect, 
the  example  of  the  ^Eon,  Jesus  himself,  who  shall  then 
resume  his  high  station  in  the  celestial  abode,  linked  for 
ever  with  his  beatified  bride,  Sophia  AehamothlJ 

*  These  were  also  among  the  opinions  held  by  the  Cainites,  or 
venerators  of  Cain,  who  proceeded  exactly  upon  the  same  principle, 
and,  in  most  points,  agreed  with  the  Ophites.  As  all  of  these  sects 
pretended  to  some  special  sources  of  information,  the  Cainites  professed 
to  have  founded  their  peculiar  tenets  upon  certain  revelations  made 
to  them  of  those  unutterable  things  which  St.  Paul  had  seen  in  his 
flight,  or  rapt,  to  the  Third  Heayens, 

t  The  sect  of  the  Ophites  is  said  to  have  been  in  existence  so  late  as 
the  sixth  century;  and  that  they  were  numerous  and  flourishing  in 
the  time  of  EphremSyrus,  appears  highly  probable  from  the  pains  taken 
by  that  Saint  to  denounce  and  curse  them. 

X  In  the  Acts  of  the  Apostle  Thomas  (one  of  the  apocryphal  books  of 
the  Encratitee  and  other  heretics,)  we  find  an  Ode  expressly  relating  to 
this  celes,tial  marriage. 


(      130     ) 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 


Catalogue  of  Heresies. — The  Marcosians,  Melchisedecians,  Montanists, 
&c. — Wby  noticed. — Clemens  Alexa'ndrinus  inclined  to  Gnosticism 
— Tertullian,  a  Montanist. — St.  Augustin,  a  Manicheean. 

m 

Having  dwelt  so  long  on  these  few  branches  of  the 
luxuriant  stem  of  Gnosticism,  I  have  but  little  claim  on 
the  reader's  patience  for  more  than  a  hasty  glance  at 
some  of  the  other  forms  of  this  and  its  kindred  heresies; 
and  the  most  compendious  way,  perhaps,  will  be  to  lay 
before  him  a  short  catalogue  raisonnee  of  a  few  of  the 
most  remarkable  of  these  sects  that  occur  to  me.* 

The  Marcosians,  as  if  to  outdo  the  Trinity,  established 
a  sort  of  Quarternity  in  the  Supreme  Father,  and  main- 
tained that  the  plenitude  of  Truth  was  to  be  found  in  the 
Greek  alphabet^  grounding  their  fancy  upon  these  words 
in  the  book  of  Revelation — "  I  am  Alpha  and  Omega." 
Their  founder,  Mark,  too,  not  only  asserted  that  God  had 
had  several  children,  but  spoke  of  these  children  (says 
St.  Iranseus)  with  as  much  confidence  as  if  he  had  been 
present  at  all  their  births. 

The  Melchisedecians,  as  their  name  imports,  selected 

*  To  those  who  are  curious  in  the  study  of  ancient  heresies,  I  beg  to 
recommend  a  work  which,  though  compiled  by  a  man  of  but  little  sound- 
ness of  judgment,  as  regards  his  own  opinions,  is  rich  in  information 
and  references  respecting  the  opinions  of  the  heretics, — the  Elenchus 
Htreticorum  omnium  of  Prateolus.  For  a  more  concise  account  of  the 
differed  sects,  Le  Grand's  Historia  Hceresiarcharum  may  be  consulted  ; 
and  those  who  prefer  seeing  the  subject  treated  in  a  Protestant  sense, 
will  rind  it  ably  done  by^the  learned  Ittigius,  Be  Haercsiarchis  cevi 
JJpostolici.  $c. 

t  Allowing  his  fancy  to  be  carried  away  by  a  false  notion  of  the 
Logos,  or  Word,  the  founder  of  the  Marcosians  supposed  those  emana- 
tions from  the  Deity  which  composed  the  heavenly  Pleroma  to  have 
proceeded  from  him  originally  as  Words,  consisting  each  of  a  certain 
mystic  number  of  letters.  Thus  the  first  word  which  the  Supreme  Be- 
ing pronounced  was  a  syllable  of  four  letters,  every  one  of  which  be- 
came a  distinct  being,  and  composed  what  Mark  called  the  first  Tetrad. 
The  second  word  was  also  of  four  letters  and  formed  the  second  Tetrad, 
completing  that  amount  of  spiritual  entities  to  which  the  Valentinians 
gave  the  name  of  the  Ogdoad.  The  third  word  was  often  letters,  and 
so  on,— through  an  infinite  series  of  arithmetical  and  inconceivable 
nonsense. 


(     131     ) 

Melchiscdec  as  the  object  of  their  worship,  holding  that 
he  was  a  Dynamis,  or  divine  power, — superior  to  Jesus 
Christ  as  being  mediator  between  God  and  the  Angels, 
whereas  Christ  was  only  mediator  between  God  and 
Man. 

The  Massalians,  having  read  in  Scripture  that  "  the 
Devil  goes  about  like  a  roaring  lion,  seeking  whom  he 
may  devour,"  and  not  content  with  a  single  prowler  of 
this  kind,  imagined  that  the  whole  atmosphere  was  brim- 
ful of  devils,  and  that  people  inhaled  them  with  the  vital 
air.  In  consequence  of  this  idea,  their  whole  time  was 
passed  in  spitting  and  blowing  their  noses,  in  the  intervals 
of  which  latter  exercise,  they  imagined  that  they  caught 
glimpses  of  the  Trinty. 

The  Pereans,  with  a  prodigality  of  divine  means  not 
very  philosophical,  established  in  their  system  three  Fa- 
thers, three  Sons,  and  three  Holy  Ghosts;  and  it  is  sup- 
posed to  be  against  these  sectaries  that  the  Athanasians 
of  the  present  day  are  called  upon  to  protest  when  they 
say  that  "  there  is  but  one  Father,  not  three  Fathers;  one 
Son,  not  three  Sons;  and  one  Holy  Ghost,  not  three  Holy 
Ghosts." 

The  Monlanists,  a  most  numerous  and  long  flourish- 
ing sect,  took  it  on  the  word  of  their  founder  that  he  was 
the  very  Paraclete  promised  by  the  Redeemer  to  perfect 
his  new  Law  of  the  Gospel.  These  heretics  (who  are 
not  to  be  accounted  any  branch  of  the  Gnostics)  held  that 
God  had  already  made  two  unsuccessful  attempts  to  save 
mankind,  first  through  the  medium  of  Moses  and  the 
Prophets;  and,  secondly,  by  his- own  manifestation  in  the 
flesh.  Both  these  plans,  however,  having  failed,  he  was 
at  last  obliged  to  descend  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  divide 
himself,  by  a  sort  of  triple  inspiration,  between  Montanus 
and  two  ladies  of  quality,  of  no  very  reputable  characters, 
who  lived  with  him.*  A  particular  branch  of  this  sect, 
the  Ascites,  used  to  place  near  their  altar  a  kind  of  bladder, 
well  blown  up,  and  dance  round  it,  regarding  the  bladder 
as  an  emblem  of  that  spiritual  inflation  with  which  they 

*  Prisca  and  Maxirailla.  Montanus  boasted  that  to  himself  and  his 
two  Prophetesses  had  been  given  the  fulness  of  God's  spirit,  whereas 
to  St.  Paul  it  had  been  but  imperfectly  communicated,— that  Apostle 
himself  having  confessed,  (I  Cor.  xiii.  9)  that  he  but ,:  knew  in  part 
and  prophesied  in  pail. 


(     132     ) 

themselves  had  been  favoured  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  Ano- 
ther branch,  the  Tascodrugitce,  or  PattalorinchitiB^  made 
it  a  point  of  devotion  to  put  their  fingers  upon  their  noses, 
or  into  their  mouths,  during  prayer,  professing  therein, 
says  St.  Augustin,  to  imitate  David; — "Set  a  watch,  O 
Lord,  before  my  mouth;  keep  the  door  of  my  lips.n* 
(Ps.  cxli.  3.) 

The  Manichees. — On  the  heresy  of  Manes,  which  be- 
gan to  flourish  towards  the  end  of  the  third  century,  the 
departing  spirit  of  Gnosticism  seems  to  have  let  fall  its 
dark  mantle.  In  imitation  of  Christ,  the  founder  of  the 
Manichees  professed  to  have  been  born  of  a  virgin,  and 
also  attached  to  himself  twelve  apostles,  by  one  of  whom 
false  Acts  were  fabricated,  and  fathered  on  the  Apostles 
of  our  Lord. 

It  may  appear  to  some  persons  but  an  idle  task  thus  to 
rake  up  such  blasphemous  follies ;  but,  as  showing  the 
wantonness  with  which  Private  Judgment  has,  in  so 
many  instances,  careered  through  Scripture,  and  the 
"fantastic  tricks  before  high  heaven,"  which  in  these 
moods,  it  plays,  such  historical  examples  cannot  be  deemed 
unuseful.  It  should  be  recollected,  too,  that  follies,  how- 
ever gross,  become,  when  adopted  by  large  portions  of 
the  human  race,  matters  of  grave  import;  and  there  L3 
hardly  one  of  the  wild,  senseless  systems  I  have  here 
enumerated  that  did  not  occupy  the  boasted  reason  of 
mankind,  whether  in  supporting  or  refuting  it,  through 
a  lapse  of  many  centures.  The  Gnostic  sects  had  each 
their  special  Gospels,  either  forged  or  corrupted  from 
those  of  the  Evangelists;!  and  each  also  adopted  a  pecu- 
liar Canon  of  Scripture,  rejecting  (as  did  Luther  after- 
wards, in  the  case  of  the  Epistle  of  St.  James,)  whatever 
happened  not  to  suit  their  respective  purposes.     The 

*  Another  wise  sect,  the  Discalceati,  in  order  to  show  the  accuracy 
of  their  spiritual  knowledge,  always  went  without  shoes,— God 
having  said  to  Moses,  fExod.  iii.  5)  ""  Put  off  thy  shoes  from  off  tby 
feet."- 

t  Thus  the  Ebionites  made  use  of  the  Hebrew  Gospel  of  St.  Mat- 
thew, leaving  out,  however,  as  contrary  to  their  belief  in  the  simple 
humanity  of  Christ,  the  three  first  Chapters.  Marcion  composed  a 
Gospel  for  himself  by  mutilating  and  altering  that  of  St.  Luke  :— and 
a  question  as  to  which  was  the  most  authentic,  Marcion's  Gospel  or 
St.  Luke's,  has  long  been  contested  among  the  German  Rationalists. 
The  heretic,  Talian,  instead  of  choosing,  like  the  rest,  some  one  of  the 
four  Evangelists,  or  some  apocryphal  relation,  made  a  code  out  of  the 
f'jur  Gospels,  which  he  called  the  Harmony  of  the  Gospels. 


(     133     ) 

Marcionites,  too,  of  whose  wild  system  of  Christianity  1 
have  just  given  some  account,  were  able  to  boast  not  only 
martyrs,  but  a  long  succession  of  bishops. 

Nor  can  we  wonder  that  light,  ordinary  minds  should 
have  been  whirled  into  these  great  Maelstroms  of  heresy, 
w7hen,  even  among  the  Catholic  Fathers  themselves, 
some  of  the  ablest  were  sucked  into  the  vortex.  In  the 
Clementine  Homilies,  a  work  which,  though  not  of  that 
high  parentage  its  assumed  name  imports,  seems  ac- 
knowledged to  have  been  the  production  of  some  eminent 
Christian  of  the  second  age,  it  is  said  of  the  Sophia  of  the 
Gnostics,  that  God  himself  rejoices  in  her  alliance.  The 
language  in  which  Clement  of  Alexandria  speaks  of  the 
Gnosis  breathes  all  the  spirit  of  that  sect;*  and,  so  late 
as  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century,  we  find  in  the  Odes 
of  the  Bishop  Synesius  such  a  display  of  Gnostic  thoughts 
and  phrases  as  renders  them  far  more  like  the  composi- 
tions of  a  Valentinian  or  Marcosian  than  of  a  Catholic 
Pastor. 

Of  the  catching  influence  of  some  of  the  other  great 
heresies,  we  have  yet  more  signal  examples.  The  shrewd 
Tertullian  was  induced  to  believe  in  Montanus  as  the  Pa- 
raclete promised  by  Christ,  and,  for  a  time,  surrendered 
his  strong  mind  to  the  gross  delusions  of  that  impostor 
and  his  two  inspired  women  of  quality.  St.  Augustin 
remained  attached  to  the  sect  of  the  Manichees  till  his 
thirtieth  year;  and  through  him  has  the  dark  infection  of 
this  heresy  been  transmitted  to  succeeding  ages, — even 
to  the  tinging  of  the  sacred  waters  of  Catholicity  with  its 
stain.  A  history,  indeed,  of  the  errors  and  extravagances 
of  heresyf  is  but  too  closely  connected  with  that  of  the 
human  mind  itself,  as  showing  what  derangements  even 
the  soundest  intellects  are  exposed  to  by  such  extravasa- 

*  Tbe  author  of  VHistoire  du  Gnosticisme  goes  so  far  as  to  assert 
that,  "  Plus  on  examine  les  opinions  des  premiers  siecles  plus  la  Gno- 
sis y  apparaitcomme  philosophie  dominante." 

t  H«vv  curiously,  if  not  always  usefully,  an  investigation  of  this 
kind  may  be  made  subservient  to  the  illustration  of  the  Sacred  text 
itself,  has  been  shown  in  those  elaborate  researches  into  the  history 
of  Gnosticism  with  which  Dr.  Burton  has,  in  his  Bampton  Lecture, 
enriched  the  learned  world. 

In  looking  over  this  laborious  work,  I  find  a  remark  which  I  have 
hazarded  some  pages  back,  p.  125,  (respecting  the  allusion  contained  in 
1  Tim.  iii.  20.  to  Gnosticism,)  anticipated  and  confirmed. 

12 


(     134     ) 

tions  of  the  life-blood  of  Faith  out  of  those  regular  chan- 
nels in  which  God  designed  it  steadily  and  healthily  to 
flow. 


—••♦►►3  ©  ©4W'*— 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 


Discovery,  at  last,  of  Protestantism  amongr  the  Gnostics.— Simon  Ma- 
gus the  author  of  Calvinism.— Calvmistic  doctrines  held  by  the  Va- 
lentinians,  Basilidians,  Manichaeans,  &c. 

Though  I  may  have  been  tempted,  in  the  preceding 
chapters,  by  the  curious  nature  of  my  subject,  to  indulge 
in  somewhat  more  lengthened  details,  respecting  the 
Gnostic  sects,  than  the  immediate  purpose  of  these  pages 
required,  it  must  also,  I  think,  have  been  observed  that, 
in  those  apparently  excursive  inquiries,  the  main  object 
of  my  pursuit  has  been  seldom,  if  for  an  instant,  forgot^ 
ten.  Nor,  even  thus  far,  had  I  any  reason  to  complain 
of  a  want  of  success  in  my  researches;  since,  as  furnish- 
ing precedents  for  the  free  exercise  of  that  great  Pro- 
testant privilege  which  entitles  every  man  to  interpret 
the  Scriptures  according  to  his  own  judgment  and  fancy, 
the  worthy  believers  in  Sophia  Achamoth  had  come  up 
to  the  full  pitch  of  all  that  my  most  independent  tastes 
could  desire.  Promising,  too,  as  all  this  looked,  it  was 
but  the  dawn  of  what  I  had  yet  to  discover  among  these 
heretics.  In  taking  thus  such  independent  and  self-willed 
views  of  Scripture,  they  but  started  on  a  principle  com* 
mon  to  all  manner  of  heresies; — but  I  soon  found  that,  as 
models  for  my  purpose,  their  example  did  not  stop  here. 
In  short,  I  discovered,  to  my  great  joy,  that,  in  some  of 
their  leading  doctrines,  the  Gnostics  were  essentially  and 
radically  Protestant.* 

*  I  can  answer  confidently  for  my  young  friend  that  at  the  time 
when  this  discovery  presented  itself  to  him,  he  was  not,  in  the  least 
degree,  aware  that  the  late  Bishop  Tomline  had,  in  his  Refutation  of 
Calvinism,  put  forth  the  same  curious  fact;— one  of  the  Chapters  of 
the  Bishop's  work  being  entitled  as  follows:  M  Opinions  of  earliest  He- 
retics bearing  resemblance  to  Calvinism." 

The  fact,  however,  of  Calvinism  being  but  a  reproduction  of  the 


(     135     , 

My  readers,  no  doubt,  will  remember  the  exceeding 
joy  and  surprise  with  which,  at  the  close  of  my  long- 
search  after  Protestantism  in  the  first  ages,  I  at  length 
stumbled  on  a  stanch  Calvinist  in  the  person  of  Simon 
Magus.  "  Not  by  virtuous  actions  (said  this  heretic)  but 
by  Grace  is  salvation  to  be  attained"  It  will  also,  per- 
haps, be  recollected  that,  from  certain  generous  scruples, 
I  then  hesitated  to  take  advantage  of  such  disreputable 
authority;  and,  though  long  foreseeing  that  my  Protes- 
tantism must  be  of  heretical  descent,  yet  felt  anxious,  for 
the  honour  of  all  parties,  that  it  should  be  of  some  better 
breed.  To  say  the  truth,  too,  I  was  not  quite  sure  that 
this  glimpse  of  genuine  Calvinism  might  not  be,  after  all, 
but  a  chance  sparkle,  and  that  I  should  see  nothing  more 
of  it.  On  passing  on,  however,  from  the  Arch-heretic  to 
the  numerous  sects  that  sprung  from  him,  I  found  this 
feature  of  the  parent  faithfully  reproduced  in  all  his  off- 
spring ;  I  found  that  they  all,  in  some  point  or  other,  an- 
ticipated the  Reformed  lights  of  Geneva  and  Wittem- 
burgh;  and  that  if  I  had,  at  once,  designated  Simon  Ma- 
gus as  the  fount  and  wellspring  of  some  of  the  most 
boasted  of  the  Protestant  doctrines,  I  should  have  as- 
serted no  more  than  it  was  in  my  power  indisputably  to 
prove. 

The  utter  depravity  of  man's  nature, — the  insufficien- 
cy, or  rather  nullity  of  good  works  towards  salvation, — 
the  powerlessness  of  the  human  will, — the  doctrines  of 
election,  reprobation,  and  perseverance, — such  are  the 
great  points  of  what  is  now  called  "  Vital  Christianity," 
on  which  I  found  the  very  spirit  of  the  Reformation  reign- 
ing throughout  these  sects;  and  could  I  have  been  con- 
tent to  receive  my  Protestantism  at  the  hands  of  Chris- 
tians who  believed  in  two  Gods,  two  Saviours,  and  a  ma- 
ternal Holy  Ghost,  I  might  from  these  Evangelical  repo- 
sitories have  provided  myself  to  my  heart's  content. 

In  each  of  the  Gnostic  sects,  for  instance,  there  was  a 
distinct  class  of  persons,  who  alone  were  thought  suffi- 
ciently spiritual  to  be  certain  of  salvation,   while  all 

Gnostic,  and  other  heresies  is  too  obvious  not  to  have  struck  learned 
observers,  long  before  the  time  of  Bishop  Tomline.  The  illustrious 
Dutch  divine,  Lindanus,  in  his  Dialogues  on  the  revival  of  ancient 
heresies,  enforced  ably  and  incontrovertible  the  same  point  ;  and  by 
the  celebrated  scholar,  Petavins,  in  the  Preface  prefixed  by  him  to  the 
works  of  Epiphanius,  it  is  no  less  strongly  asserted. 


(     136     ) 

others  were  considered  reprobate  and  incapable  of  saving 
themselves.  These  chosen  few  the  Valentinians  called 
the  Elect  Seed,  holding  that  their  faith  did  not  come  by- 
instruction,  but  by  nature  and  election.  "  They  affirm," 
says  Irenaeus,  "  that  they  themselves  shall  be  entirely 
and  completely  saved,  not  by  their  own  conduct,  but  be- 
cause they  are  spiritual  by  nature."* 

The  same  doctrine  of  Election  was  maintained  also  by 
Basilides, — coupled  with  that  other  Calvinistic  doctrine 
whieh  necessarily  results  from  it,  the  slavery  of  the  hu- 
man will : — "  He  tells  us  (says  St.  Clement  of  Alexan- 
dria) that  faith  is  not  the  rational  consent  of  a  mind  en- 
dowed with  free-will.  The  precepts  then,  both  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testament  are  superfluous,  if  any  one  be 
saved  by  nature,  as  Valentinus  maintains,  and  if  any  one 
be  faithful  and  elect  by  nature,  as  Basilides  thinks."  By 
another  also  of  these  heresiarchs,  Bardesanes,  it  was,  in 
like  manner,  asserted,  that  man  can  do  nothing  of  him- 
self, being  a  creature  wholly  without  freedom,  and  im- 
pelled by  irresistible  decrees.f 

The  high  Calvinistic  tenets  of  the  inamissibility  of 
Grace  and  Perseverance  of  the  Elect  were  maintained  as 
resolutely  by  the  Valentinians  as  by  the  Synod  of  Dort 
itself.|  "  Gold,"  said  they,  "  though  fallen  in  the  mire, 
is  still  gold,  and  loses  nothing  of  its  original  lustre  or  na- 
ture. Even  so  is  it  with  the  Elect; — let  their  conduct 
be  what  it  may,  they  can  never  forfeit  their  high  dis- 
tinctive privilege." — (Irenceus.)  The  natural  conse- 
quences of  such  dangerous  doctrine  showed  themselves 
then,  as  on  its  revival,  at  the  Reformation.     "  Where- 

*  Avrov;  & /uh  fon  7rgt^iociQ  ctx\&  £i±  to  <pv<ru7rvevjux.rtKCVs  ttvctt 

t  In  the  accounts  given  of  the  opinions  of  this  heretie  there  is  some 
apparent  inconsistency.  Though  he  was  the  author  (as  we  know 
from  Eusebius)ofa  work  against  Destiny,  he  is  yet  represented  as 
having  been  an  advocate  for  the  doctrine  of  fatality.  The  truth  seems 
to  be  that  he  considered  souls  as  exempt  from  the  laws  of  destiny,  but 
looked  upon  all  connected  with  bodies  as  under  the  control  of  fate  and 
the  stars. 

X  "  Such  as  have  once  received  that  grace  by  faith  can  never  fall 
from  it  finally  or  totally,  notwithstanding  the  most  enormous  sins 
they  can  commit." — Synod  of  Dort,  Art.  5.  Even  the  canting  phraseo- 
logy of  our  modern  Saints  is  manifestly  derived  from  the  same  source. 
Thus,  St.  Justin  tells  us  of  some  of  these  Elect  persons  who  said  of  them, 
selves  that,  "  though  they  were  sinners,  yet  if  they  knew  Qod)  the  Lord 
would  not  impute  to  them  Bin." 


(     137     ) 

fore,"  says  the  same  writer,  "  those  of  them  who  are  the 
most  perfect  do  without  fear  all  things  which  are  forbid- 
den." "  I  speak,"  says  Clement  of  Alexandria,  "  of  the 
followers  of  Basilides,  who  lead  incorrect  lives,  as  per- 
sons authorized  to  sin  because  of  their  perfection  ;*  or  who 
will  certainly  be  saved  by  nature,  even  though  they  sin 
now,  because  of  an  election  founded  in  nature." 

The  Man ichseans,  from  whom  more  directly  was  trans- 
mitted to  our  heretics  the  gloomy  doctrine  of  the  utter 
depravity  of  man,  held  also  many  of  the  other  precious 
tenets  that  have  descended  with  this  bequest.  "  Mani- 
chseus  asserts  (says  St.  Jerome)  that  his  Elect  are  free 
from  all  sin,  and  that  they  that  could  not  sin  if  they  would." 
The  same  Father  says,  "  Let  us  briefly  reply  to  those 
.slanderers  who  reproach  us,  by  saying  that  it  belongs  to 
the  Manichseans  to  condemn  the  nature  of  man  and  to 
take  away  free-will." 

Here,  then,  had  T,  at  last  accomplished  the  discovery, 
not  only  of  a  single  sect,  but  of  whole  tribes  and  genera- 
tions of  Protestants ; — a  discovery  as  unlooked  for,  and 
certainly  far  more  authentic  than  that  of  the  snug  nest  of 
Presbyterians,  which  Ledwich  found  out  among  the  wilds 
of  Tipperary,  in  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century.f  Could 
I  have  detected  but  a  millesimal  part  of  this  high  Pro- 
testantism among  the  orthodox  of  the  first  ages,  how  my 
heart  would  have  rejoiced !  how  my  conscience  would 
have  been  soothed  by  the  discovery !  One  particle,  one 
drop  of  such  true  Geneva  doctrine  would  have  sent  me  to 
my  pillow  in  comfort.  But,  no — base,  indeed,  was  the 
resource  to  which  I  now  found  myself  reduced ;  and  ac- 
cordingly, urgent  as  were  my  motives  for  conversion,  I 
came  sturdily  to  the  resolution  that,  rather  than  exchange 
the  bright,  golden  armour  of  the  old  Catholic  Saints  for 
this  heretical  brass,  lackered  over  by  modern  hands,  I 
would  submit  to  the  worst  doom  my  worldly  fate  could 
have  in  store  for  me. 


*  Some  of  these  sects,  not  unworthy  forerunners  of  the  Anabaptists, 
declared  that  a  community  of  goods  and  of  wives  was  the  just  and 
true  happiness  of  their  Elect : — 'H  7rxo-&v  cu<rtw  tati  yvvdmcm  7r»yn 
ths  But;  ttrnri  JiKctiotruvH?: — which  words  form  the  commencement  of 
one  of  those  curious  Inscriptions,  said  to  have  been  found-near  Cyrene, 
and  first  published  by  the  learned  Rationalist,  Gesenius. 

fTheOuldees. 

12* 


(     138     ) 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

Another  search  for  Protestantism  omong  the  orthodox  as  unsuccessful 
as  the  former.— Fathers  the  very  reverse  of  Calvinists.— Proofs. — 
St.  Ignatius,  St.  Justin,  &c. — Acknowledged  by  Protestants  them- 
selves. 

On  returning  again  to  the  train  of  thought  which  had 
thus  occupied  me,  and  reflecting  how  lucky  I  should  have 
accounted  myself,  could  I  have  detected,  among  the  or- 
thodox of  the  Primitive  Church,  any  such  specimens  of 
Protestantism  as  I  was  here  furnished  with  by  the 
Gnostics,  I  could  not  help  asking  myself,  with  some  anx- 
iety, was  I,  after  all,  so  sure  that  no  such  specimens  could 
be  found'?  had  I,  in  fact,  sufficiently  examined  into  the 
dogmas  of  the  early  Church  to  have  been  fully  satisfied 
that  no  such  opinions  as  I  have  been  detailing  were 
among  them  ;  or  could  it,  indeed,  be  possible  that  the  doc- 
trines of  election  and  reprobation,  of  the  inefficacy  of 
good  works  towards  salvation,  the  slavery  of  the  human 
will,  the  utter  inability  of  man  to  do  the  will  of  God, — that 
that  all  these  doctrines,  now  dignified  with  the  name  of"  vi- 
tal Christianity,"  so  far  from  being  sanctioned  by  the  au- 
thority of  the  early  lights  of  the  Church,*  are  to  be  found 
only  in  the  distempered  dreams  of  those  heretical  sects 
against  which  the  Church  had,  from  the  first  dawn  of  her 
existence,  to  combat  ] 

Such  were  now  the  questions  I  put  to  myself,  and, 
strange  to  say,  unsuccessful  as  I  had  hitherto  been  in  all 
my  exploratory  journeys  into  the  region  of  orthodoxy,  a 
last,  feeble  hope  sprung  up,  that  possibly,  on  a  little  far- 
ther search,  I  might  discover  that  the  Gnostic  heretics 
had  not  kept  all  the  Calvinism  to  themselves,  but  that 
some  foretaste  of  this  sour  fruit  was  to  be  found  also  among 
the  Fathers.  Seldom,  I  will  do  myself  the  justice  to  say, 
has  any  instance  occurred  of  a  chase  followed  up,  through 

*  "What  is  that  to  us  of  the  Church  (says  Origen)  who  condemn 
those  who  maintain,  that  there  are  some  persons  formed  by  nature  to 
be  xaved,  and  others  formed  by  nature  to  perish?" — Oontr.  Crfs. 


(     139     ) 

all  reverses,  with  such  unbaffled  ardour ; — but,  alas,  this 
new  hope  was  as  fallacious  as  any  of  its  predecessors.  In- 
stead of  finding-,  in  the  works  of  the  Fathers,  the  least 
shadow  of  a  sanction  for  the  horrible  *  notion,  assumed 
alike  by  Gnostics  and  Calvinists,  that  a  select  portion  of 
mankind  has  been  singled  out  for  salvation,  while  all  the 
rest  of  the  human  race  has  been  created  but  to  be  damned, 
I  read  in  those  authorized  expounders  of  our  Faith  the 
very  reverse  of  all  this.  I  found  in  the  excellent  St. 
Justin  the  far  different  assurance  that  the  seeds  of  the 
Divine  Word  are  implanted  equally  in  all  men,  and  that 
all  who  have  the  will  to  obtain  mercy  from  God  are  gift- 
ed also  with  the  power. 

Still  earlier  did  I  read  in  the  apostolic  St.  Ignatius, 
that  "  if  any  one  be  pious,  he  is  a  man  of  God ;  but  if  any 
one  be  impious,  he  is  a  man  of  the  Devil,  being  made  so, 
not  by  nature,  but  by  his  own  will."  Instead  of  the  pic- 
ture drawn  of  human  nature  by  Bardesanes  and  Calvin, 
who  describe  man  as  a  chained  slave  of  destiny,  without 
power  or  free-will,  I  saw  him  represented  in  the  pages  of 
these  same  Fathers,  a  free,  responsible  agent,  endowed 
with  a  self-determining  power  towards  good  or  ill,f  and 
having  eternal  happiness  or  misery  dependent  on  his 
choice.  "  I  find  that  man  (says  Tertullian)  was  formed 
by  God  with  free-will,  and  with  power  over  himself,  ob- 
serving in  him  no  image  or  likeness  to  God  more  than  in 

*  The  very  epithet  which  Calvin  himself  applies  to  his  doctrine  of  Re- 
probation : — M  Decretum  horribile  fateor."  "  Is  it  not  wonderful,"  says 
Bishop  Tomline,  "  that  any  one  should  ascribe  to  the  God  of  all  mercy 
a  decree  which  he  himself  confesses  to  be  horrible?" 

That  the  weapons  of  most  modern  heresies  are  but  those  of  the  old 
ones  refurbished,  is  a  remark  which  has  been  more  than  once  suggest- 
ed in  these  pages;  and,  as  an  illustration  of  it,  we  may  observe  that 
the  very  same  texts  now  relied  upon  by  the  Calvinists,  for  the  support 
of  their  favourite  doctrines  of  election  and  reprobation,  were  those 
referred  to,  for  the  very  same  purpose,  by  their  predecessors,  the  Gnos- 
tics,no  less  than  sixteen  or  seventeen  hundred  years  ago.  After  quoting 
several  of  these  texts,  (Gal.  i.  15,  16 ;  Rom.  i.  1 ;  Jerem.  i.  5;  Ps.  li.  5, 
xxii.  10,  Iviii.  3,)  St.  Jerome  says,  "  The  Heretics  who  pretend  that 
there  are  different  natures,  and  that  the  one  is  saved  and  that  the 
other  perishes,  maintain  from  these  passages  that  no  one  would  be 
understood  to  be  just  before  he  did  some  good,  or  would  be  hated  as  a 
sinner  before  some  crime  was  committed,  unless  there  were  a  different 
nature  of  those  who  perish  and  of  those  who  are  to  be  saved." 

t  "  He  (St.  Justin,)  speaks  of  a  self-determining  power  in  man, 
(awTijZouo-tcv,)  and  uses  much  the  same  kind  of  reasoning  on  the  ob- 
scure subject  of  free-will  as  has  been  fashionable  with  many  since  the 
days  of  Arminius,"— Miner's  Ifistory  of  the  Church. 


(     140     ) 

this  respect The  law  also  itself,  which  was 

then  imposed  by  God,  confirmed  this  condition  of  man. 
For  a  law  would  not  have  been  imposed  on  a  person  who 
had  not  in  his  power  the  obedience  due  to  the  law;  nor 
would  transgression  have  been  threatened  with  death,  if 
the  contempt  also  of  the  law  were  not  placed  to  the  ac- 
count of  his  free-will. 

Again,  instead  of  depreciating, — as  Simon  Magus,  and, 
after  him,  Luther  and  Calvin  have  done, — the  efficacy  of 
Good  Works,  thus  triumphantly  did  I  find  a  contemporary 
of  the  apostles  extolling  their  high  value.  "  Let  us  hasten 
with  cheerfulness  and  alacrity  to   perform  every  good 

work Let  us  observe  that  all  just  men  have 

been  adorned  with  good  works.  And  even  the  Lord  him- 
self with  good  works,  rejoiced.  Having,  therefore,  his 
example,  let  us  fulfil  his  will;  let  us  work  the  work  of 
righteousness  with  all  our  strength.  We  must  ever  be 
ready  in  well  doing;  for  from  thence  all  things  are  de- 
rived."— St.  Clement. 

But  it  is  unnecessary  to  refer  any  farther  to  the  nume- 
rous citations  I  had  collected  to  prove  that,  in  none  of  the 
Fathers  of  the  Church,  before  the  time  of  St.  Augustin, 
is  any  trace  of  those  Protestant  doctrines,  now  called 
Evangelical,  to  be  found;*  but  that,  on  the  contrary, 
while  Simon  Mag-iis  and  his  followers  were  enofen- 
dering  that  dark  brood  of  fancies,  which,  in  later  ages, 
were  to  be  again  quickened  into  life  by  Calvin  and 
Luther,  the  Catholic  Church  was,  through  the  tongues 
of  her  great  orators  and  teachers,  asserting  eloquently 
the  Universality  of  the  Redemption  by  Christ,  the  Free- 
dom of  the  Human  Will,f  the  precious  efficacy  of  Good 
Works  and  Repentance,  and  the  ability  of  every  Chris- 
tian to  work  out  his  salvation.  It  is  unnecessary,  I  re- 
peat, to  take  any  pains  to  prove  this  fact,  as  already  a 
host  of  Protestant  divines,  of  all  schools  of  divinity,  have 
conceded  it. 


*  From  a  passage  in  the  Institutes,  (Lib.  ii.  c.  5,  sect.  15,)  it  is  evi- 
dent that  Calvin  himself  considered  Augustin  to  be  the  only  one  of  all 
the  ancient  Fathers  that  could  be  cited  as  favourable  to  his  doctrine. 

f  "The  Soul  is  endowed  with  free-will,"  says  Origen,  "and  is  at  li- 
berty to  incline  either  way."  To  prove  that  "  man  has  a  free-will  to 
believe  or  not  to  believe,"  St.  Cyprian  quotes  Deuteronomy  xxx.  19: 
"  I  have  set  before  you  life  and  death,  blessing  and  cursing;  therefore 
choose  life,  that  thou  and  thy  seed  may  live." 


(     HI     ) 

The  Lutheran,  Flacius,  for  instance,  accuses  those  Fa-* 
thers,  who  wrote  soon  after  the  Apostles,  of  being  totally 
ignorant  of  man's  natural  corruption,  and  other  such  mys- 
teries since  discovered  in  the  Gospel  ;*  while  the  Calvin- 
ist,  Milner,  pretending  to  find,  in  the  first  century,  some 
glimpses  of  his  own  doctrines,  confesses,  that,  after  that 
period,  these  evangelical  truths  faded  away,  and  were  by 
almost  all  the  succeeding  Fathers  denied  or  forgotten. 
Of  Irenseus  and  St.  Justin,  who  wrote  in  the  second  cen- 
tury, he  says: — "They  are  silent,  or  nearly  so,  on  the 
Election  of  Grace;  and  defend  the  Arminian  notion  of 
Free-will.'"  After  taxing  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria 
with  a  similar  want  of  vital  Christianity,  he  thus,  (with 
the  arrogance  so  hereditarily  characteristic  of  a  sect  of 
which  Simon  Magus,  the  self-constituted  rival  of  Christ, 
was  the  parent,)  cavalierly  dismisses  that  learned  Father: 
"On  the  whole,  this  writer,  learned,  laborious  and  inge- 
nious as  he  was,  may  seem  to  be  far  exceeded  by  many 
obscure  and  illiterate  persons  at  this  day  in  true  scriptural 
knowledge,  and  in  the  experience  of  divine  things." 

Well  might  the  judicious  Lardner,  in  noticing  some 
similar  instance  of  presumptuous  judgment  upon  the  Fa- 
thers, with  happy  irony,  exclaim, — "  Poor,  ignorant,  pri- 
mitive Christians,  I  wonder  how  they  could  find  the  way 
to  heaven.  They  lived  near  the  times  of  Christ  and  his 
Apostles.  They  highly  valued  and  diligently  read  the 
Holy  Scriptures,  and  some  of  them  wrote  Commentaries 
upon  them;  but  yet,  it  seems,  they  knew  little  or  nothing 
of  their  religion,  though  they  embraced  and  professed  it 
with  the  manifest  hazard  of  all  earthly  good  things,  and 
many  of  them  laid  down  their  lives  rather  than  renounce 
it.  Truly,  we  of  these  times  are  very  happy  in  our  or- 
thodoxy; but  I  wish  that  we  did  more  excel  in  the  virtues 
which  they  and  the  Scriptures  likewise,  I  think,  recom- 
mend as  the  distinguishing  properties  of  a  Christian." 

*  In  the  same  manner  Basnage,  too,  complains  (Hist,  des  Eglises  Ref.) 
that  the  ancient  Christians  expressed  themselves  M  maigreraent "  on, 
these  subjects. 


(     142     ) 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 


Return  to  Heretics. — Find  Protestantism  in  abundance. — Novatians 
Agnoetre,  Donatists,  &c. — Aerius,  the  first  Presbyterian. — Accusa- 
tions of  Idolatry  against  the  Catholics. — Brought  forward  by  the 
Pagans,  as  now  by  the  Protestants. — Conclusion  of  the  Chapter. 

I  had  now  taken  my  last,  positively  last,  trip  into  the 
old  orthodox  world  in  quest  of  Protestantism;  and  weary 
as  I  was  of  so  fruitless,  so  wild-goose  a  chase,  it  was 
with  an  ill  zest  I  again  returned  to  the  study  of  my  he- 
retics, of  whom  I  now  began  .to  be  as  much  ashamed  as 
FalstafT  was  of  his  regiment.  Having  imposed  upon 
myself,  however,  the  task  of  tracing  Heresy  through  the 
first  Four  Ages,  I  was  resolved  to  go  through  with  my 
work ;  and  the  same  run  of  good  luck  in  finding  Protes- 
tants,— if  good  luck  it  could  be  called  to  find  them  where 
I  did  not  want  them, — among  the  heterodox  and  schis- 
matic, still  continued  to  attend  me.  Far  less  amusing, 
however,  were  these  later  acquaintance  than  my  old 
Calvinist  friends,  the  believers  in  Sophia  Achamoth  ;  and, 
whatever  indulgence  I  might  have  been  inclined  to  feel 
towards  Private  Judgment,  in  her  skittish  moods,  I  now 
found  that  to  be  dull,  as  well  as  heterodox,  is  a  sort  of 
supererogation  not  to  be  tolerated.  I  shall  content, 
therefore,  myself  with  singling  out,  from  the  heresies  of 
this  period,  a  few  of  those  which,  from  their  peculiarly 
Anti-Catholic  doctrines,  may  be  regarded  as  the  chief 
channels  through  which  the  elements  of  Protestantism 
have  been  transmitted,  in  full  Gnostic  perfection,  to  mo- 
dern times. 

And  first,  to  begin  with  the  Novatians : — these  secta- 
ries, who  flourished  about  the  middle  of  the  third  centu- 
ry, and  whose  founder  is  described  by  St.  Cyprian  as  "a 
deserter  from  the  Church,  a  teacher  of  pride,  and  a  cor- 
rupter of  the  truth,"  were  nevertheless,  in  their  way,  as 
good  Protestants  as  need  be,  seeing  that  they  denied 
stoutly  to  the  Church  the  power  of  absolving  penitent 
pinners,  refused  peremptorily  to  acquiesce  in  her  au- 


(     143     ) 

thority  and  traditions,  and  made  their  appeal,  as  all 
other  heretics  have  done,  before  and  since,  to  Reason. 
The  language,  indeed,  of  St.  Parian,*  in  addressing  one 
of  these  sectaries,  may,  with  the  simple  substitution  of 
the  words  placed  between  brackets,  be  applied  with 
equal  point  by  a  Catholic  of  the  present  day  to  Protes- 
tants. 

"  Who  was  it  (he  asks)  that  proposed  this  doctrine  1 
was  it  Moses,  or  Paul,  or  Christ ;  No ;  it  was  Novatian 
[Luther.]  And  who  was  he'?  was  he  a  man  pure  and 
blameless,  who  had  been  lawfully  ordained  Bishop'?  .  .  . 
*  .  And  what  of  all  this,  you  will  tell  me ; — it  suffices 
that  he  has  thus  taught.  But  when  did  he  thus  teach  ] 
was  it  immediately  after  the  passion  of  Christ  ]  No ;  it 
was  nearly  three  hundred  [sixteen  hundred]  years  after 
that  event.  But  did  this  man  follow  the  Prophets  1  was 
he  a  prophet?  did  he  raise  the  dead]  did  he  work  mira- 
cles'? did  he  speak  various  tongues]  for  to  establish  a 
new  Gospel  he  should  have  done  some  of  these  things." 
The  Saint  then  stating  explicitly  the  Protestant  princi- 
ple upon  which  these  heretics  proceeded,  "  You  say,  we 
do  not  acquiesce  in  authority ;  we  make  use  of  reason" 
adds,  "  As  to  myself,  who  have  been  hitherto  satisfied 
with  the  authority  and  tradition  of  the  Church,  I  will 
not  now  dissent  from  it." 

Our  next  sample  of  good  Protestantism  is  found  among 
the  Eunomians,  a  branch  of  the  Arian  heresy,  and  in- 
fected, as  was  Arius  himself,  with  Gnosticism.  The 
founder  of  this  sect  held  also,  with  Valentinian,  Basilides, 
&c,  the  convenient  doctrine  of  the  Perseverance  of  the 
Elect,  maintaining  that  all  who  embraced  the  truth 
(meaning  thereby  his  opinions)  would  never  fall  from  a 
state  of  grace.  Among  these  saving  opinions  the  princi- 
pal was,  that  Christ  is  not  consubstantial  with  the  Fa- 


*  Of  this  writer,  who  flourished  in  the  fourth  century,  Mr.  Clarke 
[Succession  of  Ecclesiastical  Literature]  pronounces  that  he  "  was  no 
less  pious  than  eloquent ;"  adding,  that  "  there  are  more  errors  of  the 
Romish  Church,  supported  in  a  bolder  way  and  with  more  direct  evi 
dence,  in  this  Father,  than  perhaps  in  any  other  of  double  the  bulk." 
With  all  these  "  blushing"  errors  "thick  upon  him,"  how  comes  it, 
let  me  ask,  that  St.  Pacian  was  not  considered  as  an  innovator  by  his 
contemporaries,  but,  on  the  contrary,  had  the  reputation  of  being  one 
of  the  most  acute  and  orthodox  divines  of  his  day  ?  The  solution  is 
not  difficult. 


(     144     ) 

ther.*  This  excellent  Protestant  opposed  himself  also  to 
the  old  Catholic  practice  of  paying  reverence  to  relics, 
and  invoking  the  intercession  of  Saints;  calling,  as  St. 
Jerome  tells  us,  by  the  facetious  name  of  "  Antiquarians," 
all  those  who  attached  any  value  to  the  bones  and  relics 
of  Martyrs. 

The  Agnoeta,  or  Ignorants  (as  from  their  peculiar 
opinion  they  were  called,)  afford  another  strong  exam- 
ple of  that  sort  of  heir-loom  of  error  which  heretics  trans* 
mit  to  their  successors,  from  age  to  age ;— our  Saviour's 
professed  ignorance  of  the  time  of  the  day  of  Judgment 
(Mark,  xiii.  32)  on  which  these  sectaries  founded  their 
cavils  against  his  Godhead,f  having  also  furnished  to 
that  large  class  of  Protestants,  called  Unitarians,  one  of 
the  most  plausible  arguments  for  their  still  more  exten- 
sive unbelief.  And  such  is  the  cycle  which  errors  seem 
ever  destined  to  perform, — vanishing  away,  from  time 
to  time,  and  then  darkly  reappearing.  The  very  same 
arms  with  which  the  detracters  of  Christ's  divinity  as- 
sailed the  Catholic  Doctors  of  other  times,  are  but  again 
furbished  up  by  the  Priestleys  and  Belshams  against  the 
Trinitarian  Divines  of  our  own. 

The  sect  of  the  Donatists,  which  may  be  accounted  ra- 
ther a  seism  than  a  heresy,  and  which  laid  claim  to  ex- 
clusive orthodoxy  for    Donatist  churches, — saying  that 

*  The  shrewd  argument,  as  Cave  pronounces  it,  by  which  Euno- 
mius  supported  this  position  is  as  follows:— a  simple  Essence,  such 
as  is  the  Divine  Being,  cannot  contain  within  itself  two  principles  of 
which  one  is  begetting  and  the  other  begot ;  or, — as  I  take  to  have 
been  his  meaning,  in  somewhat  plainer  terms,— a  simple  Being, 
like  God,  cannot  be  at  once  the  Begetter  and  the  Begotten. 

t  Among  those  texts  which  the  dangerous  ingenuity  of  Private 
Judgment  has  contrived  to  wrest  into  evidence  against  the  Divinity 
of  the  Saviour,  this  referred  to  by  the  Agnoetce  seems  to  have  been 
found  by  the  Fathers  the  most  difficult  to  unravel.  Some  answered 
that  the  Son  of  God  meant  only  that  he  had  no  experimental  know- 
ledge of  the  matter.  St.  Augustin  endeavours  to  get  rid  of  the  diffi- 
culty by  the  very  forced  explanation  that  by  not  knowing,  in  this  pas- 
sage, is  meant  his  not  making  others  to  know.  Some  more  modern 
theologians  have  contented  themselves  with  the  very  simple  solution 
that  "  when  Christ  told  his  apostles  he  did  not  know  on  what  day 
precisely  the  general  judgment  would  take  place,  he  very  possibly  did 
not  give  any  actual  attention  to  the  circumstance." — Forbes,  Inst. 
Theolog.  I.  3,  c.  21.)  The  distinction  of  the  two  natures,  established 
by  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  affords  the  only  explanation  of  this  and 
other  such  difficulties.  While  as  God,  Christ  knew  all  things  ;  there 
was  much  of  which,  as  Man,  he  may  be  supposed  to  have  been  igno- 
rant. 


(     145     ) 

11  God  was  in  Africa,  and  not  elsewhere," — have  in  so  fa? 
a  claim  to  be  mentioned  honourably  in  Protestant  annals 
that  they  were  the  first  Christians,  I  believe,  who  con- 
ferred upon  the  Catholic  Church  the  polite  title  of 
"Whore  of  Babylon." 

We  next  come  to  a  worthy  precursor  of  the  Presbyte- 
rians, Aerius,  who,  having  in  vain  tried  to  be  appointed 
a  Bishop  himself,  took  his  revenge  by  making  war  on  all 
Bishops  whatsoever,*  declaring  that  they  had  no  right  to 
any  superiority  or  jurisdiction  over  Presbyters.  This 
early  champion  of  the  Kirk  opposed  also  the  Catholic 
practice  of  praying  for  the  dead,  and  denied  to  the  Church 
the  power  of  instituting  Fasts,  saying  that  every  one  had 
a  right  to  choose  his  own  time  of  fasting.  In  the  reason 
given  by  him  for  this  latter  claim  of  independence, 
namely,  that  it  might  be  thus  shown  we  were  no  longer 
living  under  the  Law,  but  under  Grace,  may  be  observed 
the  woi&ings  of  that  same  antipathy  to  the  Law  and  its 
precepts,  which  has  been  transmitted,  through  a  regular 
succession  of  heretics,  from  the  Christian  Gnostics  down 
to  our  modern  Antinomians.  My  chief  motive,  however, 
for  referring  to  the  sect  of  the  Aerians  has  been  for  the 
sake  of  the  valuable  testimony  which  their  heresy  affords 
to  the  antiquity  of  the  solemn  Catholic  rite  of  prayers 
for  the  dead, — their  dissent  from  which,  in  the  middle  of 
the  fourth  century,  could  never  have  drawn  upon  them, 
so  decisively  and  generally,  the  brand  of  heresy,  had  not 
this  practice  descended  to  those  times  hallowed  by  an- 
cient recollections,  and  sanctioned  by  the  traditions  of 
the  Primitive  Church. 

The  same  remark  will  be  found  applicable  to  some  of 
the  doctrines  of  Vigilantius,  who,  though  belonging  pro- 
perly to  the  commencement  of  the  Fifth  Century,  may 
be  allowed  as  a  single  exception  to  the  rule  I  have  im- 
posed upon  myself  of  not  extending  these  researches  be- 
yond the  close  of  the  Fourth.  This  heretic,  who  holds  a 
high  rank  among  the  Protoplasts  of  Protestantism,  was  a 

*  In  disappointed  ambition  may  most  frequently  be  found  the 
source  of  those  movements  by  which  restless  spirits  have  agitated 
mankind.  Thus  Marcion  became  a  heretic  on  being  denied  Church 
preferment;  and,  with  the  same  feeling,  Vanini  wrote  to  the  Pope 
that,  if  his  Holiness  did  not  give  him  a  benefice,  he  would,  in  twelve 
month4?  from  that  time,  overturn  the  Christian  religion. 

13 


(     146     ) 

writer  of  what,  in  the  present  day,  would  be  called  smart 
anti-popery  pamphJets, — laughing,  with  some  degree  of 
humour,  at  the  reverence  paid  by  Catholics  to  Relics, 
and  at  the  prayers  of  Invocation  which  they  addressed  to 
their  Saints.  "  They  light  up,"  says  he,  "  large  tapers 
at  mid-day,  and  proceed  to  kiss  and  adore  a  small  hand- 
full  of  dust.  It  must,  no  doubt,  be  a  mighty  service  to 
the  Martyrs  thus  to  light  up  a  few  bad  candles  for  those 
whom  the  Lamb,  seated  upon  his  throne,  illuminates 
with  all  the  splendour  of  his  majesty."* 

We  may  here  see  how  far  from  modern  is  the  disinge- 
nuous trick  of  charging  Catholics  with  being  adorers  of 
Relics  and  Images,  in  the  very  teeth  of  their  own  re- 
peated disclaimers  of  such  idolatry.  The  flat  denial 
given  by  St.  Jerome  to  the  ribald  charge  of  Vigilant ius 
was,  no  doubt,  as  little  listened  to  by  the  followers  of  that 
heretic  as  are  similar  declarations  of  the  Catholics  of  our 
own  days  by  the  implicit  readers  of  the  lucubrations  of 
the  Rev.  G.  S.  Faber  and  Co. — "  We  do  not  worship," 
says  the  Saint,  "  we  do  not  adore  either  the  relics  of 
Martyrs,  or  Angels,  or  Cherubim,  or  Seraphim,— lest  we 
serve  the  creature  rather  than  the  Creator,  who  is  blessed 
for  evermore.  But  we  honour  the  relics  of  the  Martvrs, 
that  our  minds  may  be  raised  to  Him  whose  Martyrs 
they  are.  We  honour  them,  that  this  honour  may  be  re- 
ferred to  Him  who  says,  'He  thatreceiveth  you,  receiveth 
me.'  (Matt  x.  40.")  Again,  he  exclaims  indignantly, 
"  Thou  madman  !  who  ever  yet  adored  the  Martyrs  \ 
who  ever  yet  fancied  that  a  mortal  was  a  God  t" 

But  this  unfair  policy  of  the  adversaries  of  the  Catho- 
lics is  of  a  still  more  ancient  date  than  even  the  times  of 
St.  Jerome ;  and,  like  almost  every  other  point  in  the  re- 
lative position  of  the  two  parties,  may  be  traced  back  as 
far  as  the  Apostolic  age.  Even  then  was  the  same  spirit 
of  misrepresentation  alive ;  even  then  was  the  homage 
offered  to  the  enshrined  relics  of  an  Ignatius  or  a  Poly- 
carp  denounced  by  scoffers  at  the  Faith  as  being  an  idola- 
trous transfer  of  that  worship  to  the  creature  which  be- 


*  In  his  answer  to  Vigilantius  St.  Jerome  says—"  The  Bishop  of 
Rome,  then  does  wrong,  in  offering  sacrifice  to  God  over  the  venera- 
ble bones  of  those  dead  men  Paul  and  Peter,— according  to  you,  but 
vile  dust,— and  in  regarding  the  tombs  of  tluse  Saints  as  altars." 


(     147     ) 

longs  only  to  the  Creator.  That  tills  was  the  case,  in 
the  instance  of  Poly  carp,  appears  by  a  Letter  from  the 
Church  of  Smyrna,  of  which  he  was  Bishop,  giving  to 
the  Faithful  an  account  of  all  the  circumstances  of  his 
martyrdom.  "  It  was  suggested,"  say  they,  "  that  we 
would  desert  our  crucified  Master  and  begin  to  worship 
Polycarp.  Foolish  men!  who  know  not  that  we  can 
never  desert  Christ,  who  died  for  the  salvation  of  all 
men,  nor  worship  any  other.  Him  we  adore  as  the  Son 
of  God ;  but  we  show  deserved  respect  to  the  Martyrs, 
as  his  disciples  and  followers.  The  Centurion,  therefore, 
caused  the  body  to  be  burnt.  We  then  gathered  his 
bones,  more  precious  than  pearls  and  more  tried  than 
gold,  and  buried  them.  In  this  place,  God  willing,  we 
will  meet  and  celebrate  with  joy  and  gladness  the  birth- 
day of  his  Martyr,  as  well  in  memory  of  those  who  have 
been  crowned  before,  as  by  his  example  to  prepare  and 
strengthen  others  for  the  combat." — Euseb.  Hist  Ec- 
cles.  I.  4,  c.  15. 

Thus  it  is,  as  I  have  already  observed,  that  the  rela- 
tive position  of  the  two  parties, — the  Catholic  Church  on 
one  side,  and  the  protesters  against  her  doctrine  on  the 
other, — has  been,  from  the  first,  and  through  all  ages, 
virtually  the  same;  the  old  truths  remaining  still  un- 
changed, and  the  old  errors,  like  often  detected  delin- 
quents, reappearing  again  and  again,  under  other  names, 
so  that,  in  fact,  the  Calvinism,  Antinomianism,  &c.  of 
modern  times,  are  little  else  than  aliases  of  the  Gnosti- 
cism and  Manichseism  of  times  past. 

Stil]  more  evident  might  this  remarkable  fact  be  made 
to  appear  by  a  yet  farther  inquiry  into  the  history  of  past 
heresies ;  but,  I  have  already  sufficiently  tried  my  read- 
er's patience  on  this  subject.  Enough  too  has,  perhaps, 
been  said  to  show  what  fantastic  gambols  the  various  and 
ever-teeming  spawn  of  Heresy  have,  at  all  times,  played 
around  the  venerable  ark  of  the  Church  in  her  majestic 
navigation  through  the  great  Deep  of  Ages  ; — while  in 
vain  attempting  to  sully  or  perplex  her  path,  shoal  after 
6hoal  of  these  monsters  have  descended  into  darkness, 
leaving  the  one,  bright,  buoyant  Refuge  of  the  Faithful 
to  pursue  unharmed,  to  the  end  of  time,  her  Saving  way, 


(     148     ) 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

Brief  recapitulation.— Secret  out,  at  last.— Love  affair.— Walks  by  the 
river.—"  Knowing  the  Lord.'1— Cupid  and  Calvin. 

I  had  now  closed  my  vain  search  after  Protestantism 
through  the  first  ages;  and  the  whole  process  and  results 
of  my  inquiry  may,  in  a  very  few  sentences,  be  recapitu* 
lated.  As  Protestants  profess  to  have  restored  Christi- 
anity to  its  primitive  purity,  it  was  but  natural  to  expect 
that  among  primitive  Christians  I  should  find  the  best 
Protestants.  Accordingly,  betaking  myself,  as  has  been 
seen,  to  the  Apostolical  era  of  the  Church,  I  continued 
my  search  from  thence  downwards,  through  those  four 
first  ages  which,  like  the  steps  of  Jacob's  ladder  nearest 
heaven,  may  be  said  to  have  caught  most  directly  and 
freshly  upon  them  the  effusions  of  divine  light.  And 
what,  after  all,  were  the  fruits  of  this  most  anxious  and 
conscientious  search  1  where,  let  me  ask,  through  that 
whole  pure  period,  did  I  find  one  single  Protestant — 
where  even  the  smallest  germ  of  anti-Catholic  doctrine  1 
Was  it  in  the  Good  Works  and  Weekly  Fasting  of  Bar- 
nabas and  Hermas,  or  in  the  Corporal  Presence  and 
change  of  the  elements  maintained  by  St.  Ignatius  and 
St.  Justin  7  Was  it  in  the  reverence  paid  by  the  former 
to  the  oral  Traditions  of  the  Church,  or  the  veneration 
in  which  his  ashes  and  those  of  Polycarp  were  held  by 
the  Christians  who  immediately  succeeded  them  !  Did 
St.  Ireneeus  speak  in  the  spirit  of  Protestantism  when  he 
claimed  for  the  See  of  Rome  "  Superior  Headship  "  over 
all  other  Churches,  or  when  he  pronounced  the  oblation 
of  the  body  and  blood  on  the  altar  to  be  the  Sacrifice  of 
the  New  Law  1 — But  it  is  needless  to  go  again,  however 
cursorily,  through  all  the  stages  of  that  evidence;  which 
must  have  proved,  I  think,  to  even  the  least  candid  read- 
er, that  there  is  not  a  single  one  of  those  doctrines  or  ob- 
servances, now  rejected  by  the  Protestants,  as  Popish, 
that  was  not  professed  and  practised,  on  the  joint  authori- 
ty of  the  Scriptures  and  Tradition,  by  the  whole  Church 
of  Christ,  through  the  first  four  ages, 


(     149     ) 

While  thus  I  found  Catholicity — or,  if  you  will,  Po- 
pery— among  the  orthodox  of  those  times,  among  whom, 
and  among  whom  alone,  was  it  that  I  found  the  doctrines 
of  Protestantism!  Let  the  shade  of  Simon  Magus,  that 
great  father  of  Calvinism,  stand  forth  and  answer; — bring 
the  Capharnaites,  with  their  presumptuous  questioning 
as  to  how  our  Lord  could  give  us  his  flesh  to  eat ; — let 
the  Gnostic  believers  in  the  marriage  and  progeny  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  bring  forward  their  doctrines  of  Election, 
Perseverance,  Immutable  Decrees,  &c. ; — let  the  Mani- 
chaeans  come  and  assert  the  utter  depravity  of  human  na- 
ture and  the  utter  slavery  of  the  human  will ; — bid  the 
Docetae,  and  Marcionites  produce  their  bodiless  and  blood- 
less Eucharist ; — call  Novatian,  Aerius,  Vigilantius  and 
the  like,  to  protest  against  Tradition,  Prayers  for  the 
Dead,  Invocation  of  Saints,  and  Reverence  of  Relics ; — 
let,  in  short,  the  entire  rabble  of  heretics  and  schismatics, 
who,  during  that  time,  sprung  up  in  successive  array 
against  the  Church,  come  and  club  their  respective  quo- 
tas of  error  towards  the  work,  and,  I  shall  answer  for  it, 
such  a  complete  body  of  Protestant  doctrine  may  be  there- 
from compiled  as  might  have  saved  the  Reformers  of 
Wittenberg  and  Geneva  the  whole  trouble  of  their  mis- 
sion. 

Such,  then,  being  the  view  I  had  taken  of  this  most 
important  matter, — a  view  adopted,  after  much  delibera- 
tion, and  with  very  sincere  reluctance, — it  will  naturally 
be  concluded  that,  however  imperative  might  have  been 
my  motives  for  turning  Protestant,  I  had  now  abandoned 
all  thoughts  of  undergoing  so  retrograde  a  metamorphosis. 
Marvellous,  however,  as  it  mMwell  appear,  this  was  by 
no  means  the  case.  On  the  contrary,  I  felt  myself  still 
drawn  on,  as  by  the  hand  of  destiny ;  and  with  a  sort  of 
fascinated  feeling  like  that  of  persons  standing  upon  the 
edge  of  a  precipice,  so  long  had  I  now  been  gazing  into 
the  misty  gulf  of  Protestantism,  that  it  was  with  difficulty, 
I  found,  I  should  be  able  to  forbear  the  leap. 

And  this  brings  me,  at  last,  to  the  explanation  which  I 
have  so  long  promised  my  readers,  respecting  the  mo- 
tives, which  independently  of  those  mentioned  at  the 
commencement  of  this  work,  impelled  me  to  smother,  as 
far  as  lay  in  my  power,  all  religious  scruples,  and  to  re- 
solve,— even  should  I  find  the  features  of  Protestantism 

13* 


(     150     ) 

not  such  as  would  stand  the  light  of  day, — to  embrace 
her  in  the  dark.  Though  foreseeing  that  my  change  of 
faith  would  be,  in  a  spiritual  sense,  infinitely  for  the 
worse,  I  yet  tried  to  persuade  myself  that  it  was,  after 
all,  but  fair,  that,  having  suffered  so  much  in  the  service 
of  a  good  religion,  I  should  now  try  to  recompense  my- 
self by  a  little  of  that  prosperity  which  I  saw  attached  to 
the  profession  of  a  bad  one.  In  short,  my  voyage  was, 
like  that  of  Jason,  after  a  Golden  Fleece;  nor  was  there 
wanting,  as  will  appear  from  the  following  narrative,  a 
fair  Medea  to  assist  me  to  the  acquisition  of  it. 

The  house  in  which  my  father  resided,  on  his  own 

small  estate,  in  the  county  of ,  was  situated  in  the 

neighbourhood  of  part  of  the  property  of  Lord  *  *  *  one 
of  our  most  considerable  absentees,  whose  agent,  a  sort 
of  second-hand  Lord  himself,  was  left  to  manage  all  the 
concerns  of  those  immense  possessions,  as  though  they 
were  entirely  his  own.  About  two  miles  from  the  house 
where  we  lived,  lay  the  residence  of  this  agent,  and  a 
close  intimacy  had,  for  a  long  time,  subsisted  between 
the  two  families; — that  of  the  agent  consisting  but  of 
himself  and  a  rather  elderly  maiden  sister,  whose  fate  it 
was,  as  will  be  seen,  to  have  considerable  influence  over 
my  destinies,  spiritual  as  well  as  temporal.  The  lady 
and  her  brother  were,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  Protestants, 
the  noble  owner  of  the  property  being  of  that  class  of  or- 
thodox persons  who  would  have  thought  it  unsafe  to  bring 
any  religion  in  contact  with  their  pounds,  shillings,  and 
pence,  save  only  Protestantism. 

It  was  a  frequent  boast  with  Miss  *  *  that  her  family 
had  been  all  of  this  domimnt  faith  since  the  time  of  the 
Reformation;  though  by  some  of  the  older  neighbours,  it 
was,  indeed,  hinted,  that  this  Protestantism  of  hers,  if 
hereditary,  had  been,  for  some  generations,  to  their  know- 
ledge, in  at  least  a  latent  state.  That  it  had  again  broken 
out,  however,  in  Miss  *  *,  in  the  most  decided  form,  was 
allowed  by  all ; — her  case  being  of  that  species  called  the 
Evangelical,  or  Vital. 

This  spinster  had  early  expressed  a  warm  interest  in 
my  salvation,  and  having,  like  all  persons  of  her  school, 
a  strong  taste  for  proselytism,  would  frequently  propose 
to  me  a  walk,  along  the  banks  of  the  river,  for  the  chari- 
table purpose  of  conversing  with  me  upon  religious  sub- 


(      151      ) 

jects,  and  teaching  me,  as  she  expressed  it,  to  "  knew  the 
Lord  "  as  intimately  as  she  did.  What  with  phrases,  in- 
deed, such  as  I  have  just  quoted,  and  the  exceeding  pride 
she  at  all  times  took  in  talking  of  her  brother's  noble  pa- 
tron, the  word  "  Lord,"  in  one  shape  or  the  other,  was 
hardly  ever  out  of  her  mouth, — producing  equivoques  oc- 
casionally, between  the  spiritual  and  the  temporal,  which, 
though  diverting,  it  would  not  be  quite  reverential  to 
mention. 

Whether,  in  these  efforts  for  my  conversion,  the  lady 
had,  originally,  any  farther  view  than  merely  to  gratify  that 
love  of  interference,  which  in  Saints  is  so  active,  I  will 
not  pretend  to  determine.  But  it  was  not  long  before  I 
perceived  that  feelings  of  another  description  had  a  good 
deal  mixed  themselves  with  her  anxiety  for  my  spiritual 
welfare ;  nor  could  I  help  observing  that,  in  proportion  as 
I  approached  the  marriageable  time  of  life,  and  as  she 
herself  receded  from  it,  a  more  tender  tone  of  interest  be- 
gan to  diffuse  itself  through  her  manner; — our  walks  be- 
came, through  her  management,  more  frequent  and  pro- 
longed ;  and  even  her  religious  discourses  came  to  be  so 
"rosed  over"  with  sentiment,  that  never  before  were 
Cupid  and  Calvin  so  undistinguishable  from  each  other. 

Though  it  was  impossible,  as  I  have  already  said,  to  be 
blind  to  what  all  this  indicated,  there  were  yet  circum- 
stances, setting  aside  the  lady's  advantage  in  years,  which 
rendered  me  incredulous  as  to  her  having  the  least  no- 
tion of  a  matrimonial  union  between  us.  To  become  the 
wife  of  a  Papist,  I  had  frequently  heard  her  declare, 
would  be,  on  her  part,  such  an  act  of  base  and  wilful  de- 
generacy as  might  well  make  her  Protestant  ancestors 
start  from  their  graves  with  indignation ; — in  addition  to 
which,  having,  as  was  generally  believed,  no  fortune,  ex- 
cept what  her  brother,  out  of  his  bounty,  might  be  dis- 
posed to  give  her,  it  seemed  the  most  improbable  thing 
in  the  world  that  she  should  run  the  risk  of  incurring  his 
displeasure  by  forming  an  alliance,  in  other  respects  so 
injudicious,  with  one  so  ill  off  in  worldly  means  as  my* 
self. 


(     152     ) 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

Rector  of  Ballymudraeget. — New  form  of  shovel. — Tender  scene  in  the 
shrubbery. — Moment  of  bewilderment. — Catholic  Emancipation  Bill 
carried. — Correspondence  with  Miss  *  *. 

Thus  stood  my  views  of  the  matter,  when,  during  a 
visit  of  a  few  days  to  my  family,  there  occurred  a  circum- 
stance which  removed  all  doubts,  as  to  our  fair  neigh- 
bour's object,  and  opened  a  vista  into  the  future  which  at 
once  dazzled  and  perplexed  me.  I  have  already,  in  the 
preceding  volume,  made  my  readers  acquainted  with  ano- 
ther of  my  father's  neighbours,  the  rich  Rector  of  Bally- 
mudragget. — So  closely,  indeed,  from  my  very  infancy, 
was  the  figure  of  this  portly  personage  connected  with 
all  my  notions  concerning  matters  of  religion,  that  were 
I  now  to  be  blessed  with  visions  as  beatific  as  those  of 
St.  Teresa  herself,  the  corpulent  shadow  of  this  Rector 
would  be  sure  to  bustle  across  the  light  of  my  dreams. 

His  vast  importance  in  our  neighbourhood, — his  eter* 
nal  tithes,  of  which  I  had  no  other  notion,  as  a  child,  than 
that  they  were  a  peculiar  sort  of  delicacy  on  which  Rec- 
tors lived — his  awful  hat,  which  used  to  be  seen  moving, 
like  a  meteor,  along  our  roads,  affrighting  the  poor  and 
exacting  homage  from  the  rich,— the  select  fewness  of 
the  auditory  to  whom  he  all  but  soliloquized  his  Sunday 
discourses, — every  thing,  in  short,  connected  with  him 
concurred  to  give  rne  a  strange  and  confused  notion  of 
the  religion  of  which  he  was  minister,  and  to  make  me 
look  up  to  him  as  a  sort  of  Grand  Lama  enshrined  at  Bal- 
lymudragget.  As  I  grew  older,  I  came,  of  course,  to  un- 
derstand the  matter  more  clearly,  and  to  know  that,  under 
the  mock  title  of  Minister  of  the  Gospel,  the  old  gentle- 
man was  but  the  fortunate  holder  of  a  good  sinecure  of 
some  2000Z.  per  ann.,  to  which  the  father  of  the  present 
Lord  *  *  had,  some  twenty  years  back,  appointed  him. 

At  the  period  of  my  visit,  just  alluded  to,  the  Rev. 
-Gentleman  was  rather  dangerously  ill,  and,  except  as  a 
matter  of  gossipping  conversation,  the  circumstance  ex- 


(     153     ) 

cited  but  little  interest  in  the  neighbourhood.  A  change 
of  hat,  was,  indeed,  all  that  most  persons  speculated  on, 
in  the  event  of  his  death,  and  it  was  generally  acknow- 
ledged that,  as  a  variety,  some  new  form  of  shovel  would 
be  acceptable.  If  rumour,  however,  was  to  be  credited, 
our  snug  neighbour,  the  agent,  had  a  far  more  substantial 
interest  in  the  good  Rector's  demise ;  the  present  Lord 
having,  it  was  said,  promised,  on  succeeding  to  the  title, 
tbat  the  next  presentation  to  the  living  should  be  at  his 
agent's  disposal. 

How  far  this  rumour  was  founded,  I  had  never  even 
taken  the  trouble  of  asking ;  but,  one  memorable  morn- 
ing, when  a  report,  it  appeared,  had  got  abroad,  that  the 
old  Rector  was  so  much  worse  as  to  be  given  over  by  his 
physicians,  Miss  *  *  proposed  to  me  a  walk  to  the  Par- 
sonage House  to  make  inquiries.  On  our  arrival  at  the 
door,  we  were  admitted,  and  while  the  servant  took  up 
our  message,  my  companion  and  I  sauntered  through  the 
trellised  conservatory  which  opened  from  the  Rector's 
well-furnished  study  into  the  neat  lawn  and  shrubberies 
by  which  his  mansion  was  surrounded.  Having  never  be- 
fore seen  the  place  by  daylight,  I  happened  to  ejaculate, 
as  we  walked  along,  "  What  luxury !  what  comfort  I" 
when  my  fair  companion,  as  if  unable  to  contain  her  feel- 
ings any  longer,  turned  to  me  with  a  look  of  the  most 
languishing  tenderness,  and,  laying  her  hand  gently  upon 
my  arm,  said,  "  How  should  you  like  to  be  the  master  of 
such  a  residence  I" 

It  was  impossible  to  misunderstand  her ; — the  look,  the 
tone  of  voice,  the  question  itself  spoke  volumes.  I  saw 
the  power  of  presentation  in  her  eyes ;  felt  the  soft  pres- 
sure of  induction  in  her  hand ;  and  was  already,  in  the 
prospective  dream  of  my  fancy,  her  husband  and  a  Rec- 
tor !  That  chasm  which,  but  a  few  seconds  before,  had 
seemed  to  yawn  between  Popery  and  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles,  was  now,  by  a  sudden  bound  of  my  imagination, 
eleared  without  difficulty,  and,  had  not  our  conversation 
been  providentially  interrupted,  I  was  on  the  point,  I 
fear,  of  committing  myself  to  some  engagement  of  which, 
both  as  man  and  as  Christian,  I  should  have  repented. 

To  the  significance  of  the  few  broken  sentences,  which, 
in  this  short  interval,  fell  from  her,  I  should  in  no  respect 
do  justice  by  merely  repeating  them.  Brief  as  they  were, 


(     «4    ) 

they  conveyed  summarily  to  me  the  important  intelli- 
gence, that  her  brother,  through  whose  recommendation 
the  next  incumbent  was  to  be  appointed,  had  placed  the 
benefice  at  her  sole  disposal,  as  a  marriage  portion,  with 
whomsoever  she  might  find  ready  and  worthy  to  share  it 
with  her ; — that  to  her  selection  of  me,  as  the  happy  oc- 
cupant of  both  these  blessings,  my  unlucky  religion  was 
the  whole  and  sole  obstacle,  and  that  it  depended  but 
upon  myself,  should  the  Rector  die  to-morrow,  to  embrace 
Protestantism,  and  her,  and  Ballymudragget  together! 
Though  dazzled  at  first  by  this  prospect,  there  needed,  I 
must  say,  but  a  moment's  reflection  to  restore  my  mind 
to  the  balance  it  had  been  on  the  point  of  losing.  Put- 
ting the  religious  part  of  the  question  wholly  out  of  con- 
sideration, I  saw  instantly  what  a  mark  of  dishonour  must 
for  ever  attach  to  my  name,  if,  in  the  apparently  hopeless 
state  of  the  Catholic  prospects,  at  that  moment,  I  should 
desert  the  fallen  faith  of  my  fathers,  and  for  so  glaring  a 
bribe. 

From  the  task  of  explaining  all  this  to  the  lady  herself, 
the  speedy  recovery  of  the  old  Rector  saved  me ; — but 
that  unlucky  scene  in  his  shrubbery  had  given  an  entirely 
new  character  to  our  intercourse.  The  bewilderment 
into  which  she  had  seen  me  thrown  by  her  few  pregnant 
sentences  was  interpreted  by  her  in  the  sense  most  fa- 
vourable to  her  own  wishes;  and,  without  expressly  re- 
turning to  the  subject,  there  was  in  all  our  intercourse, 
from  that  moment,  an  evident  impression,  on  her  part,  of 
a  sort  of  tender  understanding  between  us,— an  impres- 
sion, which,  partly  from  an  habitual  unwillingness  to 
give  pain,  and  partly,  perhaps,  from  a  little  vanity  in  this 
my  first  conquest,  I  took  no  pains  to  remove. 

In  about  two  or  three  months  after  this  period,  the 
Emancipation  Bill  was  carried  ;  and  of  some  of  the  effects 
which  that  great  event  produced  upon  my  mind,  the 
reader  has  been  already  told.  During  the  time  I  was  em- 
ployed in  pursuing  my  course  of  sacred  studies,  I  found 
myself  unable  to  afford  an  opportunity  of  paying  a  visit 
to  home;  and  my  intercourse,  therefore,  with  my  fair 
converter  was,  unluckily  for  me,  confined  solely  to  let- 
ters. I  call  this  mode  of  communication,  in  my  instance, 
unlucky,  because  the  object  addressed  being  out  of  sight 
and  at  a  distance,  my  imagination  was  left  free  to  invent 


(     155     ) 

her  with  all  sorts  of  agreeable  attributes,  without  having 
its  pictures  brought  disturbingly  to  the  test  of  reality,  or 
its  spells  weakened — perhaps,  broken — by  the  idol's  voice 
and  presence.  The  consequence  was,  that  my  fair  cor- 
respondent still  more  and  more  brightened  upon  my  ima- 
gination, the  longer  she  continued  absent  from  my  sight; 
and  in  proportion  as  I  forgot  what  she  really  was,  I  be- 
came but  the  more  deeply  enamoured  of  what  I  fancied 
her  to  be.  How  far  the  prospect  of  a  rich  rectory,  with 
its  tithes,  great  and  small,  might  have  had  a  share  in  pro- 
ducing and  nurturing  up  this  dream  of  sentiment,  I  must 
leave  to  others  to  conjecture.  That  such  rectorial  reali- 
ties may  have  helped  to  give  substance  to  the  vision,  I 
will  not  entirely  deny ;  but  still  in  imagination,  the  re- 
sult was  not  the  less  tender  and  sentimental ;  and,  could 
I  have  been  well  secured  against  the  casualty  of  ever 
again  seeing,  or  speaking  with  the  lady  of  my  love,  there 
is  no  saying  to  what  extraordinary  lengths  of  time  and 
ardour  my  passion  might  have  persevered. 


-*«wte  q  ©4<«— 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

Miss  *  *  's  knowledge  of  the  Fathers.— Translation  of  her  Album  from 
St.  Basil,  St.  Chrysostom,  St.  Gregory,  St.  Jerome.— Tender  love- 
poem  from  St.  Basil. 

Though  I  had  not  yet  mustered  up  sufficient  courage 
to  make  Miss  *  *  acquainted  with  the  result  of  my  searches 
after  Protestantism,  she  knew,  and,  of  course,  duly  appre- 
ciated the  efforts  I  was  making  to  render  myself  worthy 
of  her  hand.  Not  that  this  evangelical  lady's  learning 
extended  so  far  back  as  to  give  her  the  least  notion  of  the 
existence  of  any  such  persons  as  the  Fathers; — her  read- 
ing having  chiefly  lain  in  such  New-Light  paths  as  the 
Evangelical  Magazine  and  Morning  Watch,  where  au- 
thorities such  as  the  Rev.  E.  Irving,  and  the  reputed  Eli- 
as,  Mr.  Louis  Way,*  would  be  sure  to  carry  the  day  tri- 

*  The  honour,  which  this  pioua  gentleman  has  now  for  some  time 
enjoyed,  of  being  looked  upon  as  no  less  a  personage  than  Eliaa  incog. 


(      156     ) 

umphantly  against  all  the  St.  Justins  and  St.  Ambroses  of 
antiquity.  She  was,  however,  courteous  enough  to  give 
me  credit  for  having  adopted  the  most  effectual  mode  of 
Protestantizing  myself;  and  only  hinted,  now  and  then, 
affectionately,  that  she  thought  me  a  long  time  about  it. 

By  way  of  keeping  her  in  good  humour,  as  well  with 
the  Fathers  as  with  myself,  I  occasionally  translated  into 
verse  some  of  the  many  florid  passages  which  occur  in 
these  writers,  and  laid  them,  in  double  homage,  at  once, 
of  poetry  and  piety,  at  her  feet.  With  these  half  tender, 
half  saintly  strains,  the  lady  was,  as  may  be  supposed,  in- 
expressibly delighted.  To  the  task  of  copying  them  out, 
her  most  delicate  crow-quills  were  devoted ;  and  it  was 
the  first  time,  I  dare  swear,  in  the  annals  of  gallantry, 
that  the  names  of  St.  Basil,  St.  Gregory,  and  St.  Jerome 
were  fated  to  shine  forth  in  the  pages  of  a  morocco-co- 
ve-red Album. 

The  pathetic  remonstrance  addressed  by  St.  Basil  to  a 
Fallen  Virgin,  (of  which  Fenelon  has  said,  "  On  ne  petit 
vien  voir  de  plus  eloquent,")  abounds  writh  passages  to 
which,  though  in  the  form  of  prose,  such  poetry  as  the 
following  does  but  inadequate  justice. 

ST.  BASIL  TO  A  FALLEN  VIRGIN. 

Remember  now  that  virgin  choir* 
Who  loved  thee,  lost  one,  as  thou  art, 

was  attributed  also,  I  find,  by  some  sectaries  of  the  last  century,  to  & 
devout  Captain  of  dragoons,  whom  they  singled  out,  I  know  not  why, 
for  the  same  mysterious  distinction.  In  a  similar  manner,  the  Seek- 
ers, by  whom.  St.  John,  the  Apostle,  is  expected  back  again  upon  earth, 
gave  out,  some  time  ago.  that  he  was  actually  arrived  and  living  re- 
tired in  the  County  of  Suffolk.  See  Honori  Reggi  de  Statu  Ecclesia. 
BritanniccB. 

*  In  a  note  on  the  words.  "  Ad  Christi  contendit  alt  aria,"  in  the 
Treatise  of  St.  Ambrose  De  Mysteriis,  there  is  a  description  given,  by 
the  Benedictine  Editor,  of  some  of  the  forms  usual,  in  the  time  of  that 
Father,  on  the  admission  of  the  young  neophytes  into  the  sanctuary, 
to  receive  the  sacrament.  In  describing  their  procession  from  the  bap- 
tistery to  the  altar,  bearing  each  a  lighted  taper  in  his  hand,  as  is  the 
manner  of  the  Catholic  Church,  to  this  day,  he  makes  mention  also  of 
the  young  maidens  who  had  lately  been  professed  and  who  likewise 
formed  a  part  of  this  innocent  train:— Si  qua?  pueTlee  virginitatem  in 
Paschatio  festo  essent  professap,  ipsa  etiam  inter  hos  innocentes  greges 
deducebantur." 

Those  who  have  been  taught  to  consider  Nuns  as  among  the  crea- 
tions of  modern  Popery,  will  see,  from  all  this,  that  such  dedication  of 
young  virgins  to  God  was  customary  in  the  high  and  palmy  age  of  the 


(     157     ) 

Before  the  world's  profane  desire 

Had  warm'd  thine  eye  and  chill'd  thy  heart. 

Recall  their  looks,  so  brightly  calm, 

Around  the  lighted  shrine  at  even,* 
When,  mingling  in  the  vesper  psalm, 

Thy  spirit  seem'd  to  sigh  for  heav'n. 

Remember,  too,  the  tranquil  sleep, 

That  o'er  thy  lonely  pillow  stole, 
While  thou  hast  pray'd  that  God  would  keep 

From  every  harm  thy  virgin  soul. 

Where  is  it  now — that  innocent 

And  happy  time,  where  is  it  gone  ? 
These  light  repasts,  where  young  Content 

And  Temperance  stood  smiling  on; 

The  maiden  step,  the  seemly  dress, 

In  which  thou  went'st  along,  so  meek; 
The  blush,  that,  at  a  look,  or  less, 

Came  o'er  the  paleness  of  thy  cheek; 

Alas!  alas!  that  paleness  too,f 

That  bloodless  purity  of  brow, 
More  touching  than  the  rosiest  hue 

On  Beauty's  cheek — where  is  it  now? 

From  one  of  the  Homilies  of  St  Chrysostom,  who,  it  ig 
known,  particularly  distinguished  himself  by  his  severe 
strictures  on  the  gay  dresses  of  the  Constantinopolitan 
ladies^  the  following  specimen  of  his  style  of  rebuke,  on 
such  subjects,  is  selected: — 

Christian  Church.  Even  the  runaway  nun  whom  Luther  married  might 
have  found  some  precedent  for  her  escapade  in  those  good  old  times,  as 
we  read,  in  one  of  St.  Jerome's  Epistles  (xciii.)  of  an  attempt  to  cany 
off  a  nun  from  a  convent. 

*  St.  Basil  represents  the  virgins  as  dancing  round  the  altar:— 
fAWoSnTt  Tcturaiv  x.ctt  etyytxiKtis  tt^i  <rov  &eov  /usr*  txuvaw  XciuaL^* 
Such  sacred  dances,  in  imitation  of  those  of  the  Hebrews,  were  per- 
mitted, on  great  festivals,  among  the  early  Christians,  and  the  Bishops 
and  dignified  Clergy  (as  we  are  told  by  Scaliger)  used  to  join  in  them. 

t  My  young  friend's  translation  here  falls  short,  I  must  say,  of  the 
beauty  of  the  original :— ft^goTjjc  koli  warns  tv^ow  x*£wrngov  wri° 

X  One  of  the  persecutions  raised  against  him  was  headed,  we  are 
told,  by  three  widows,  who  could  not  forgive  (says  Gibbon)  a  preacher 
who  reproached  their  affectation  of  concealing,  by  the  ornaments  of 
dress,  their  age  and  ugliness." 

14 


(     158     ) 

Why  come  ye  to  the  place  of  prayer, 
AVith  jewels  in  your  braided  hair? 
And  wherefore  is  the  House  of  God 
By  glittering  feet  profanely  trod, 
As  if,  vain  things,  ye  came  to  keep 
Some  festival,  and  not  to  weep  ? 
Oh!  prostrate  weep  before  that  Lord 

Of  earth  and  heaven,  of  life  and  death, 
Who  blights  the  fairest  with  a  word, 

And  blights  the  mightiest  with  a  breath  1 

Go — 'tis  not  thus  in  proud  array 
Such  sinful  souls  should  dare  to  pray-* 
Vainly  to  anger'd  Heaven  ye  raise 
Luxurious  hands  where  diamonds  blaze; 
And  she  who  comes  in  'broiderM  veil 
To  weep  her  frailty,  still  is  frail. 

The  same  Homily  also  furnished  me  with  rather  a  cu- 
rious passage,  showing  how  just  were  this  Saint's  notions 
of  female  beauty,  and  how  independent  of  the  aid  of  or- 
nament was  its  natural  power,  in  his  eyes. 

"Behold,"  thou  say'st,  "  my  gown  is  plain, 
My  sandals  are  of  texture  rude ; 
Is  this  like  one  whose  heart  is  vain } 
Like  one  who  dresses  to  be  woo'd?" 

Deceive  not  thus,  young  maid,  thy  heart,! 

For  far  more  oft  in  simple  gown 
Doth  Beauty  play  the  tempter's  part, 

Than  in  brocades  of  rich  renown; 

And  homeliest  garb  hath  oft  been  found, 
When  typed  and  moulded  to  the  shape,  t 

To  deal  such  shafts  of  mischief  round 
As  wisest  men  can  scarce  escape. 

*  T*  K^TfjLUt  ravmr;  cia  wra  rdum  SMenwunc  <r±  cyjijusLrx. 

m  yi*  XfffoQf**  ^>-r  fajtgiMtffieci  in. — Homil  8,  in  1 

Ep.  ad  Tim. 

\   M»  STitTA  Tdtnmf  i',i7TlV,  GTIg  l^H79SiA  TCVTUY  /Uu£gVOC{  X.X.K- 

could  express  muie  knowingly  ihe  perfection  of  a  well  fitted  gown. 


(     159     ) 

Poetical  as  was,  in  general,  the  prose  style  of  the 
greater  number  of  the  Fathers,  St.  Gregory  of  Nazian- 
zum  was,  I  believe,  the  only  one  among  those  of  the  four 
first  centuries,  who  wrote  actual  Poems ;  and  of  these  I 
extracted  and  translated  a  considerable  portion  for  the 
album  of  my  fair  friend.  The  following,  however,*  in 
which  the  Saint  Poet  somewhat  unconsciously  requires, 
that  both  the  eyes  and  lips  of  his  young  virgins  should  be 
motionless,  is  the  only  specimen  from  his  works  with 
which  I  shall  here  trouble  the  reader. 

Let  not  those  eyes,  whose  light  forbids 

All  love  unholy,  ever  learn  to  stray, 
But  safe  within  thy  snowy  lids 

Like  timid  virgins  in  their  chambers,  stay,f 
Keeping  their  brightness  to  themselves  all  day. 

Let  not  those  lips  by  man  be  won 

To  breathe  a  thought  that  warms  thy  guileless  breast, 
But,  like  May -buds  that  fear  the  sun, 

Shut  up  in  rosy  silence,  ever  rest, — > 

Silence,  that  speaks  the  maiden's  sweet  thoughts  bes^ 

From  a  letter  of  St.  Jerome,  in  praise  of  the  young 
widow,  Blesilla, — one  of  those  patterns  of  female  holiness, 
those  gems  of  sanctity,  who  formed  what  Prudentius  calls 
"the  necklace  of  the  Church,-' — the  following  passage  is 
paraphrased  :* 

*  From  his  'TttoB-waj  II'JLg&erotc,  ™  Precepts  to  Virgins. 

t  There  is  a  pun  here  rather  implied  than  expressed,  which  the  fol- 
lowing passage  from  St.  Chrysostom  will  explain : — Kogu  7r^o<ra.yc^iui^ 

TCLI  0   G@$Z\jUGC,  IVCt  m  tWVH  V7T0  S~VU)  @Xl<pct£6eV  'dog   iV  TIVI  XOvGoVK- 

Xitoo  ctTrocvcKHTctif  ovtcd  x.xi  «  7rag&ivos  Ji&utiVH. — Homil.  77,  de  Pceni- 

tent.  "  The  eye  is  called  **g»  (a  young  girl, J  in  order  that,  as  the  for- 
mer is  curtained  up  by  two  eyelids,  as  in  a  bedchamber,  even  so  may 
the  maiden  herself  remain." 

*  The  whole  passage  is  so  much  more  eloquent  and  vigorous  in  the 
original,  that  I  must,  in  justice,  give  it  here  : — "  Dum  spiritus  nos  re- 
get  artus,  dum  vitss  hujus  fruimur  commeatu,  spondeo,  promitto,  pol- 
liceor,  illam  mea  resonabit  lingua,  illi  mei  dedicabantur  labores,  illi 
sudabit  ingenium.  Nulla  erit  pagina,  quse  non  Blesillam  resonet ;  quo- 
cunque  sermonis  nostri  monumenta  pervenerint,  ilia  cum  meis  opus- 
culis  peregrinabitur.  Hanc  mea  rnente  defixam  legent  virgines,  vidua?, 
mouachi,  sacerdotes,  et  breve  vitaB  spatium  sterna  memoria  compjn- 
sabit nunquam  in  meis  moritura  est  libris." 


(     ICO     ) 

She  sleeps  among  the  pure  and  blest, 

But  here,  upon  her  tomb,  I  swear, 
That,  while  a  spirit  thrills  this  breast, 

Her  worth  shall  be  remember'd  there. 

My  tongue  shall  never  hope  to  charm, 

Unless  it  breathes  Blesilla's  name; 
My  fancy  ne'er  shall  shine  so  warm, 

As  when  it  lights  Blesilla's  fame, 

On  her,  where'er  my  pages  fly, 

My  pages  still  shall  life  confer, 
And  every  wise  and  brilliant  eye 

That  studies  me  shall  weep  for  her; 

For  her  the  widow's  tears  shall  fall, 

In  sympathy  of  wedded  love; 
And  her  shall  holy  maidens  call 

The  brightest  of  their  saints  above. 

Throughout  all  time,  the  priest,  the  sage, 
The  cloister'd  nun,  the  hermit  hoary, 

Shall  read,  and  reading  bless  the  page 
That  wafts  Blesilla's  name  to  glory, 

One  more  versified  extract  from  a  Treatise  of  St.  Basil, 
and  I  shall  then  have  done  with  Miss  *  *  's  saintly  Album, 
So  warm  a  tribute  to  the  beauties  and  allurements  of  wo- 
man, from  a  pen  so  grave  as  that  of  the  eloquent  Bishop 
of  Caesarea,  may  w7ell  be  found  startling ;  and  the  trans- 
lation, I  must  say,  in  point  of  ardour,  does  but  faint  jus- 
tice to  the  original.  In  fairness,  however,  it  should  be 
premised,  that  the  authenticity  of  the  work  from  which 
this  extract  is  taken  has  been  questioned,  and  that,  among 
others,  the  Saint's  learned  biographer,  Hermant,  doubts 
its  genuineness. 

There  shines  an  all-pervading  grace, 
A  charm,  diffused  through  every  part 

Of  perfect  woman *s  form  and  face, 

That  steals,  like  light,  into  man's  heart. 

Her  look  is  to  his  eyes  a  beam 

Of  loveliness  that  never  sets; 
Her  voice  is  to  his  ear  a  dream 

Of  melody  it  ne'er  forgets; 


(     161      ) 

Alike  in  motion  or  repose, 
Awake  or  slumbering1,  Bure  to  win, 

Her  form,  a  vase  transparent,  show9 
The  spirit's  light  enshrined  within. 

Nor  charming  only  when  she  talks,* 
Her  very  silence  speaks  and  shines; 

Love  gilds  her  pathway  when  she  walks, 
And  lights  her  couch  when  she  reclines. 

Let  her,  in  short,  do  what  she  will, 

'Tis  something  for  which  man  must  woo  her; 
So  powerful  is  that  magnet  still 

Which  draws  all  souls  and  senses  to  her. 


^■*>t>r©  ^^  ©40'*" 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 


Difficulties  of  my  present  position. — Lord  Farnham's  Protestants.— 
Ballinasloe  Christians. — Pious  letter  from  Miss  *  *. — Suggests  that  I 
.should  go  to  Germany.— Resolution  to  take  her  advice. 

The  position  in  which  I  now  found  myself  was  not  a 
little  embarrassing.  By  this  unlucky  correspondence,  in 
which  I  had  been,  for  some  months,  engaged,  and  which 
— being,  on  my  side  a  mere  indulgence  of  fancy,  at  the 
least  possible  cost  of  reality  or  feeling, — might  have  gone 
on  thus,  under  the  fostering  influence  of  absence,  for  ever. 
I  had  not  only  deluded  my  mature  friend,  Miss  *  *,  into 
the  fond  certainty  that  I  was  in  love  with  her,  but  had  even, 
by  dint  of  fine  sentences,  which,  "  like  chariot-wheels, 
kindled  as  they  ran,"  brought  myself,  in  some  slight  de- 
gree, to  indulge  in  the  same  delusion.  While  between 
the  lady  and  me,  too,  this  ideal  approximation  was  taking 

*  Kxt  ov  KAXoycA  yuvH  /aovov  k-s.1  oganrdL^  etxxct  x.cti  und-v/tAm  nan 

K'JLl  (ZdufrlfyvTCL,  eft*  TUV  eVCU^O-V  KZTH  <TOV  Ct^iVOC  CLUTH?    ^UTtKHV  (ft/l/- 

fAxyyctvivii. — Be  vera  Virginitate. 

14* 


(     162     ) 

place,  that  unlucky  Protestantism  which  was  to  form  the 
indispensable  basis  of  our  union,  seemed  farther  off  from 
me  than  ever;  and  had  a  vacancy  occurred  in  the  R.ec- 
tory  of  Ballymudragget,  at  this  moment,  the  unprovided 
state  in  which  it  would  have  found  me,  in  the  important 
article  of  religion,  would  have  been  perplexing  in  the  ex- 
treme. 

In  addition  to  the  repugnance  I  could  not  but  feel  to 
the  adoption  of  a  new  creed,  from  the  conviction  forced 
upon  me,  at  every  step  of  my  inquiries  upon  the  subject, 
that  in  the  Catholic  Church  alone  was  to  be  found  genuine 
Christianity,  there  had  been  also  a  ridicule,  at  this  time, 
brought  upon  all  conversions  to  Protestantism,  by  the 
utter  failure  of  a  late  saintly  farce,  called  the  Second 
Irish  Reformation,  to  which,  in  no  possible  circumstances, 
could  1  have  had  the  courage  to  expose  myself.  The 
wretched  absurdity  of  that  last  effort  of  Protestant  As- 
cendency,—the  parade  made  about  a  few  scores  of  hungry 
Papists,  who  consented  to  become  Protestants  on  the 
same  terms  on  which  Mungo  consents  to  tell  truth, 
"  What  you  give  me,  Massa  !  — and,  finally,  the  uncere- 
monious speed  with  which  all  these  Ballinasloe  Chris- 
tians* relapsed,  laughing  in  their  sleeves,  into  Popery  and 
Idolatry. — the  whole  of  this  grave  farce  will  long  be  re- 
membered, to  the  signalization  of  my  Lord  Farnham's 
wisdom,  and  the  no  less  honour  and  glory  of  the  Reverend 
wise-acres  of  the  British  Critic,  who  sounded  the  ram's* 
horns  of  triumph  in  his  pious  Lordship's  rear. 

To  the  fear  of,  by  any  chance,  being  mistaken  for  one 
of  Lord  Farnham's  Protestants,  I  was  myself,  perhaps, 
more  peculiarly  alive,  from  a  consciousness,  but  too  well 
founded,  alasi  that,  between  the  poor  wretches  who  ex- 
changed their  faith  for  "  the  Friday's  bacon/'  and  myself, 
who  was  about  to  barter  it  for  the  rich  rectory  of  Bally- 
mudragget, the  amount  of  the  bribe  constituted  the  whole 


*  They  who  are  amused  with  such  foolery  cannot  do  better  than 
turn  to  the  numbers  of  the  British  Critic  for  that  period  (towards  the 
latter  end  of  1627.)  where  they  may  trace  the  whole  ludicrous  course 
of  this  New  Light  mummery  from  the  first  triumphant  announcements 
of  the  advanceof  "  the  Reformation  "  through  the  benighted  regions 
of  Ballinasloe,  Loughrea  and  Ahascrah.  till,  "coming  in  contact","  as 
these  gentlemen  express  it,  "  with  the  darkness  of  the  land  in  Sligo," 
its  evangelical  light  began  to  wax  fainter  and  fainter,  and  at  last,  in 
the  aptly-named  district  of  Kilrnummery,  expired! 


(     103     ) 

and  sole  difference.  Feeling,  however,  that  I  was  bound, 
in  courtesy,  to  communicate  to  my  fair  correspondent 
some  little  insight  into  the  real  state  of  my  mind,  on  the 
subject,  I  ventured  to  intimate  to  her,  in  one  of  my  letters, 
that  the  impression  left  on  my  mind  by  the  perusal  of  the 
Fathers  was,  I  grieved  to  say,  not  quite  so  favourable  to 
the  cause  of  Protestantism  as,  in  her  zeal  for  my  speedy 
conversion,  she  might  desire ;  and  that  a  yet  farther  course 
of  time  and  study  would  be  requisite,  before  those  scruples 
which  I  entertained,  as  to  the  adoption  of  a  new  faith, 
could  be  removed. 

The  lady's  answer  to  this  was  in  her  accustomed  tex- 
tuary  style.  After  declaring  pathetically  that  she  had, 
as  I  could  well  conceive,  "wearied  the  Lord  with  her 
words,"  (Malachi,  ii.  17,)  in  my  behalf,  and  assuring  me 
of  her  unceasing  anxiety,  night  and  day,  to  pluck  that 
11  dear  firebrand  "  (as  she  tenderly  and  scripturally  called 
my  soul)  out  of  the  fire,  she  proceeded  to  say  that,  from 
the  very  first,  she  had  felt  serious  apprehensions  that  in 
seeking  "the  word  of  the  Holy  One  "  (Isa.  v.  24)  among 
the  Fathers,  I  was  but  trying  to  "  gather  grapes  of  thorns, 
and  figs  of  thistles  "  (Matt.  vii.  16.)  The  only  acquain- 
tance she  herself  had  ever  formed  among  the  Fathers 
was  at  the  table,  as  she  reminded  me,  of  my  own  family, 
where  it  had  been  her  fortune,  on  more  than  one  occasion, 
to  meet  the  Reverend  Father  O'Toole  and  Father 
M'Loughlin ;  and  the  less,  in  her  opinion,  that  was  said  of 
such  Fathers  of  the  Church,  the  better. 

After  a  little  more  of  this  display  of  learning,  respect- 
ing the  Fathers,  Miss  *  *  continued  to  say  that,  were  she 
to  speak  her  own  desire,  on  the  subject,  it  would  be,  that 
I  should,  for  a  time,  "  separate  from  that  filthiness  of  the 
heathen  "  (Ezra,  vi.  21)  with  which  my  family  connexions 
would,  as  long  as  I  tarried  in  the  land,  be  sure  to  compass 
me;  and  sorely  as  it  would  afflict  her,  even  for  a  brief 
space,  to  lose  me,  yet  so  anxious  was  she  that  "  the  soul 
of  her  turtle  (meaning  me)  should  not  be  delivered  unto 
the  wicked"  (Psalm  lxxiv.  19) — so  strong  was  her  desire 
to  "  cause  mine  iniquity  to  pass  from  me  and  clothe  me  with 
a  change  of  raiment  "  (Zech.  iii.  4,)  that  until  the  arrival 
of  that  happy  moment  when  we  were  to  "  cleave  one  to 
another"  (Daniel,  ii.  43,)  she  counselled  earnestly  that  ] 
should  betake  myself  unto  some  "land  of  uprightness" 


(     164     ) 

(Psalm  cxliii.  10) — even  the  land  of  Luther,  or  of  the 
immortal  Calvin, — and  there,  out  of  the  reach  cf  the 
*  Mother  of  Harlots  "  (Rev.  xvii.  5)  continue  to  "nourish 
myself  up  in  the  words  of  faith  and  of  good  doctrine  "  (1 
Tim.  iv.  6,)  so  as  to  become  worthy,  at  last,  of  that  "  fat 
portion  "  (Hab.  i.  16)  which  was  in  store  for  me,  and 
which  should  be  "  rendered  double  unto  me,  as  unto  the 
prisoners  of  hope  "  (Zech.  x.  12.) — namely,  herself  and 
Bally  mud  rag-get. 

In  a  postscript  to  this  piece  of  scriptural  patch-work,  the 
fair  writer  added  that,  in  the  event  of  my  going  abroad, 
she  meant  to  commission  me  to  procure  for  her  a  copy  of 
that  edifying  book,  Luther's  Table  Talk  ;*  and  would,  at 
the  same  time,  recommend  to  me,  for  my  own  particular 
edification,  a  pious  foreign  work,  called  Pastor  Fido,f 
written  by  one  Guarini,  and  accounted,  as  she  understood, 
one  of  the  best  possible  manuals  for  the  instruction  of 
young  Protestant  divines  in  those  duties  which,  as  faith- 
ful Pastors,  they  were  to  perform  towards  their  flocks. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  this  last  learned  sugges- 
tion, the  project  hinted  to  me  by  my  fair  converter  of  a 
visit  to  the  hand  of  Luther, — the  birth-place  of  the  Re- 
formation,— the  boasted  well-spring  of  the  thousand  and 
one  streams  of  Protestantism, — flashed  like  a  ray  of  new- 
born light  across  my  fancy,  "  To  Germany ! — yes,  to 
Germany  will  I  assuredly  go,"  exclaimed  I,  once  more 
striding  Protestantly  through  my  two-pair-stair  chamber, 
and  marvelling  that  so  compendious  a  mode  of  attaining 
my  object  had  never  before  occurred  to  me.  In  the  ex- 
citement of  the  vague  hope  that  now  opened  upon  me, 
■added  to  the  exhilarating  prospect  of  foreign  travel  and 

*  This?  "  edifying  book  "  of  Luther  contains  the  conversations  of  the 
jovial  Reformer  over  his  cups,  as  reported  by  Rebenstok,  one  of  his 
most  attached  disciples,  and  published,  after  his  death,  with  cruel 
kindness  by  his  friends.  Great  efforts  were,  of  course,  made  to  dis- 
credit the  authenticity  of  this  work. — but  without  success.  The  zealous 
Dutch  divine,  Voet.  allowed  its  genuineness,  and  even  the  Reformer's 
partial  historian.  Seckendorf,  could  do  no  more  than  lament  the  im- 
prudence of  the  friends  who  published  it.  The  ribaldry,  indeed,  with 
which  this  book,  in  its  original  state,  abounded,  might  well  awaken, 
in  those  who  were  solicitous  about  the  Reformer's  fame,  deep  regret  at 
its  publication. 

-  In  this  mistake  respecting  the  Pastor  Fido  the  lady  was  not 
singular;  for.  already  had  the"  poet  Guarini,  from  the  same  misap- 
prehension, been  placed  in  the  rank  of  ecclesiastical  writers  by  Aubert 
le  Mire.—**  Querelles  Litter  aires,  Tom.  i, 


(     165     ) 

adventure,  the  whole  course  of  my  late  studies  was,  at 
once,  lost  sight  of  and  forgotten.  Fathers,  Councils, 
Primitive  Church,  all  receded  into  the  back  ground,  and 
already  did  I  begin,  in  the  true  pride  of  a  Reformed 
spirit,  to  persuade  myself  that  every  thing  which  had 
passed  during  the  first  fifteen  hundred  years  of  Chris- 
tianity was  but  an  idle  dream,  and  that  not  till  the  year 
of  our  Lord  1530*  did  the  Gospel  of  our  Lord  come  purely 
and  evangelically  into  operation. 


■ ■•H^^  ^^  N/"**  w— 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 


The  Apostolic  antiquity  of  the  Catholic  doctrines  allowed  by  Pro- 
testants themselves.— Proofs  : — from  the  writings  of  the  Reformers, 
Luther,  Melancthon,  &c— from  later  Protestants,  Casaubon,  Scaliger, 
&c— from  Socinus  and  Gibbon. 

In  the  fit  of  delirium  which,  at  the  close  of  the  pre- 
ceding chapter,  I  have  described,  I  was,  in  fact,  but  jump- 
ing to  a  conclusion  into  which  all  thinking  Protestants 
who  have  examined  fairly  into  the  history  of  primitive 
Christianity,  and  yet  are  satisfied  with  their  own  religion, 
must  deliberately  have  settled.  By  their  manual,  the 
Book  of  Homilies,  they  are  informed  that,  more  than  eight 
hundred  years  previously  to  the  Reformation,  the  whole  of 
Christendom  lay  drowned  in  all  the  darkness  of  Popery; 
and  a  fair  inquiry  into  the  writers  of  the  early  Church 
must  have  convinced  them  that  the  same  religion  which 
existed  during  the  eight  hundred  years  specified  in  the 
Homilies  had  also  flourished  through  all  the  preceding 
centuries,  up  to  the  first  birth-hour  of  the  Church.  They 
have,  therefore,  no  other  alternative  left  them  than  the 
conclusion  to  which,  in  my  delirium,  I  came, — that,  until 
the  year  of  our  Lord  1530,  the  Gospel  of  our  Lord  had 

*  The  year  in  which  the  Augsburg  Confession  of  Faith  was  drawn 
up  by  Luther  and  Melancthon. 


(     ICG     ) 

never  been  truly  promulgated;  and  that,  accordingly,  his 
Church,  that  only  visible  Church  of  Christ  on  earth,  to 
which  God  himself  so  solemnly  declared,  "  Lo,  I  am  with 
you  alway  to  the  end  of  time/'  had  yet  been  suffered  by 
him,  for  a  space  of  more  than  fifteen  hundred  years,  to  lie 
drowned  as  the  Homily  tells  us,  in  "  abominable  idola- 
tiy," — the  vice  "  most  detested  of  God  and  most  damna- 
ble to  man !" 

The  position,  indeed,  which  it  has  been  my  chief  aim 
to  establish  in  these  pages, — namely,  that  the  doctrines 
and  observances  taught  by  the  Catholics  of  the  first  ages 
were  the  same  as  those  professed  and  practised  by  the 
Catholics  of  the  present, — has  long,  I  find,  by  all  dis- 
passionate inquirers,  even  among  Protestants  themselves, 
been  virtually,  and,  in  most  instances,  expressly  acknow- 
ledged ;  and  had  this  important  admission  been  somewhat 
earlier  known  to  me,  it  might  have  spared  both  my  readers 
and  myself  the  infliction  of  some  heavy  reading. 

It  is  true,  that  at  the  period  of  the  Reformation,  and  for 
some  time  after,  when  it  was  naturally  an  object  with 
those  who  originated  such  violent  changes  to  invest  them, 
as  far  as  they  could,  with  some  semblance  of  authority, 
both  the  ingenuity  and  the  effrontery  of  the  innovators 
were  exerted  to  press  the  sanction  of  the  ancient  Fathers 
into  the  service  of  their  new  enterprise.  But  the  avowals 
of  some  of  the  most  eminent  among  the  Reformers  them- 
selves showed  how  conscious  they  were  of  the  hollowness 
of  their  pretensions  to  such  authority.  The  deep  con- 
cern with  which  the  considerate  and  conscientious  Me- 
lancthon  viewed  each  successive  deviation  from  the  an- 
cient standard  of  the  Faith  is  frequently  and  with  much 
earnestness  expressed  in  some  of  his  letters.  Thus,  in  a 
letter  cited  by  Hospinian,  he  says — "  It  is  not  safe  thus 
to  depart  from  the  general  opinion  of  the  ancient  Church;"* 
and,  in  another  place,  "  it  is,  in  my  judgment,  great  rash- 
ness thus  to  spread  abroad  doctrines  without  consulting 
the  Primitive  Church."f 

From  Luther's  own  confessions,  it  is  well  known  how 
long  and  anxiously  he  struggled  to  get  over  the  testi- 

*"  Neque  verd  tutum  est  a  communi  sententia  veteris  Ecclesi©  dis- 
redere." 

" 1  Meo  quidem  judicio  magna  est  temeritas  dogmata  serere  incon. 
eulta  Ecclesia  veteri." 


(     167     ) 

monies,  in  favour  of  the  Real  Presence,  which  he  found 
both  in  the  text  of  Scripture  and  in  the  writings  of  the 
Fathers;  and  with  what  exceeding  reluctance  lie,  at  last, 
retained  a  doctrine  which  it  would  have  been  so  decidedly, 
as  he  felt,  for  the  interests  of  his  cause  to  repudiate.  In 
a  letter  to  his  followers  at  Strasbourg,  he  declares  the 
pleasure  which  it  would  afford  him,  could  they  suggest 
to  his  mind  some  good  grounds  for  denying  the  Real 
Presence,  as  nothing  could  be  of  more  service  to  him  in 
his  designs  against  the  Papacy.* 

So  admitted  is  this  struggle  of  Luther's  conscience, 
upon  the  subject  of  the  Eucharist,  that  Bayle  deduces  from 
it  an  ingenious  argument  in  favour  of  toleration,  on  the 
ground  that  the  most  erroneous  opinions  may,  as  in  this 
case,  be  the  result  of  the  most  sincere  and  anxious  search 
after  truth.  "  Who  does  not  know,"  says  Bayle,  "  that 
Luther  was  passionately  desirous  not  to  believe  in  the 
Real  Presence,  persuading  himself  that  so  long  as  he 
should  continue  in  that  belief,  he  would  thereby  be  de- 
prived of  one  great  advantage  towards  the  object  he  had 
in  view  of  destroying  Popery.  His  wishes,  however, 
though  founded  upon  what  he  believed  to  be  strongly  his 
interest,  were  unavailing.  He  was  not  able,  though  en- 
deavouring with  all  his  might,  to  discover  that  figurative 
sense  which  to  us  is  so  visible,  in  the  words  of  Christ, 
"  This  is  my  body."f 

With  little  less  throes  of  conscience  did  another  Re- 
former, CEcolampadius,  succeed  in  surmounting  the  testi- 
monies of  the  ancient  Fathers,  on  the  same  point ;  nor 
was  it  till  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  renounce  their  au- 
thority altogether, — "  semota,  hominum  auctoritate,"J — 
that  he  could  bring  himself  to  adopt  the  Sacramentarian 
doctrine. 

Were  we  to  collect,  indeed,  the  different  Catholic  doc- 
trines of  which  some  one  or  other  of  the  Reformers  them- 
selves acknowledged  the  antiquity,  we  should  rind  almost 
the  whole  of  their- own  new  system  of  belief  surrendered 
by  them  in  detail.  Thus  the  antiquity  of  the  doctrine  of 
a  Corporal  Presence  was  maintained  by  Luther  against 


*  Epist.  ad  Argcntin. 

t  Supplement  du  Commentaire  Philosophiquc,  CEuvres,  Tom.  2. 

X  Lavater. 


(     16S     ) 

Calvin  and  Zwingli  ;*  and  Melancthon  even  expressed 
himself  respecting  that  mystery  "  in  the  very  strongest 
terms  (says  Moshiem's  Commentator)  that  the  Roman 
Catholics  use  to  express  the  monstrous  doctrine  of  Tran- 
substantiation;  adopting  those  remarkable  words  of  Theo- 
phylact,  '  the  bread  was  not  a  figure  only,  but  was  truly 
changed  into  flesh.' " 

The  Centuriators  of  Magdeburgh  admit,  reluctantly  and 
angrily,  the  antiquity  of  the  Sacrificial  Offering.  Prayers 
for  the  Dead  were  acknowledged  by  Calvin  to  have  been 
an  ancient  and  pious  usage  :f  and  the  Lutherans  not  only 
conceded  this  point  in  the  Defence  of  the  Confession  of 
Augsburg,  but  professed  their  dissent,  in  the  same  docu- 
ment, from  the  opinion  of  the  heretic  Aerius,  who  main- 
tained, in  the  fourth  century,  that  Prayers  for  the  Dead 
were  useless. 

While  Calvin  rejected  this  usage,  which  he  yet  allow- 
ed to  be  of  high  antiquity,  he,  on  the  other  hand,  con- 
fessed, or  rather  boasted,  that  his  system  of  Election  and 
Grace  was  wholly  unknown  to  all  the  Fathers  of  the  four 
first  centuries  ;$  and  Melancthon,  with  all  his  reverence 
for  the  authority  of  the  early  Church,  could  yet, — hurried 
away,  like  the  rest,  by  a  factious  spirit  of  Reform, — adopt 
new-fangled  doctrines  such  as  that  of  Imputed  Justice, 
wholly  unknown,  as  he  himself  allowed,  to  the  ancient 
Christians.  5 

By  Luther  the  use  of  Images  and  of  the  sign  of  the 
Cross, ||  as  well  as  Confession  and  the  Sacrament  of  Abso- 


*  This  did  not,  of  course,  escape  the  observation  of  some  among  their 
own  followers.  For  instance,  Dudith  (who  is  said  to  have  ended  his  own 
course  in  Socinianism)  thus  asks  of  Beza,  in  one  of  his  letters  to  him, 
"  On  what  dogma  do  those  who  have  declared  war  against  the  Pope 
agree  among  themselves?  If  you  take  the  trouble  to  look  over  all  the 
articles,  from  the  first  to  the  last,  you  will  not  find  one  that  is  not  ad- 
mitted by  some,  and  condemned  by  others." 

|  Vetustis  ecclesiae  scriptoribus  pium  esse  visum  suffragari  proMor- 
tuis. 

1  Instit.  Lib.  2.  c.  2.—  By  Gomarus  and  other  such  followers  of  Calvin 
it  is  even  admitted  that  the  doctrines  of  their  master,  as  explained  by 
them,  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  Gospel. 

§  See  one  of  his  Letters,  (Lib.  3.  Ep.  126.)  in  which  he  acknowledges 
that  he  could  rind  nothing  like  this  doctrine  among  the  Fathers. 

||  "The  Father  of  the  Reformation,  Luther,  (says  De  Starck)  wrote, 
that,  on  getting  out  of  bed  in  the  morning,  one  ought  to  sign  oneself 
with  the  Holy  Cross." 

A  learned  and  famous  Lutheran,  Gerhard,  has  even  so  far  racked 
his  wits  in  defence  of  this  sign,  as  to  produce  the  following  strained 


(   icy   ) 

lution  were  retained;  while  Melancthon,  Bucer,  and 
other  high  authorities  of  the  Reformation,  acknowledged 
the  antiquity  and  importance  of  the  Supremacy  of  the 
Roman  See.  The  proofs  of  this  latter  concession  are  nu- 
merous. Thus  Melancthon  says : — "  There  is  no  dispute 
on  the  superiority  of  the  Pope,  and  the  authority  of  bi- 
shops ;  the  Pope,  as  well  as  they,  may  keep  this  authori- 
ty."— Again,  "  The  monarchy  of  the  Pope  would  also 
contribute  much  to  preserve  the  unity  of  doctrine  among 
different  nations;  if  other  points  could  be  settled,  we 
.should  soon  agree  respecting  the  supremacy  of  the  Pope.* 
Bucer,  too,  who  was  invited  to  England  by  Cranmer,  to 
assist  in  forming  the  Anglican  Church,  writes  thus  strong- 
ly on  the  same  point : — "  We  confess  that,  in  the  opinion 
of  the  ancient  Fathers,  the  Roman  Church  did  hold  the 
Primacy,  having  the  Chair  of  Peter,  and  that  her  bishops 
have  been  accounted  his  successors."!  But  the  most 
striking  testimony  on  this  point,  because  wrung  from 
him  by  the  confusion  he  saw  around  him,  is  that  of  the 
Reformer  Capito : — "  The  authority  of  the  clergy  (ho 
says,  in  a  letter  to  Farel)  is  entirely  abolished.     All  is 

lost, — all  is  going  to  ruin God  now  makes  me 

feel  what  it  is  to  be  a  Pastor,  and  what  mischief  we  have 

authority  for  its  use :— "  The  patriarch  Jacob,  laying  his  hands  upon 
his  grandsons,  Ephraim  and  Manasseh,  cross-wise,  formed,  as  it  were, 
a  Cross,  and  so  admonished  them  concerning  the  cross  of  Christ." — 
Loci  Theolog.  T.  4.  de  Baptism. 

*  Resp.  ad  Bel.-— This  opinion  of  Melancthon  is  thus  referred  to  by 
the  illustrious  Grotius,  who  was  himself  a  strong  advocate  for  the 
Primacy  of  the  Roman  See,  as  the  only  means  of  preserving  unity  in 
the  general  Church  of  Christ.  "  Ideo  optat  (Grotius)  ut  ea  divulsio  quae 
everiit.  et  causae  divulsionis  tollantur.  Inter  eas  causas  non  est  Pri- 
matus  Episcopi  Romani,  secundum  Canones,  fatente  Melanethone, 
qui  eum  Primatum  etiam  necessarium  putat  ad  retinendam  unita- 
tem."  With  Grotius,  too,  may  be  associated,  as  another  authority  in 
favour  of  the  Primacy  of  Rome,  the  no  less  illustrious  name  of  the 
philosopher  Leibnitz.    See  his  Systema  Theologicum. 

In  a  yet  more  recent  Protestant  writer  than  any  here  referred  to, — 
the  Baron  Senkenberg,  Professor  of  Law  in  the  Universities  of  Gotten- 
gen  and  Giesen,  and  Aulic  Counsellor,  &c,  under  the  Emperor  Fran- 
cis I. — we  find  the  following  strong  opinion  on  the  same  subject : — 
"  It  is  right  that  there  should  be  a  system  of  government  among  Chris- 
tians, and  it  is  right  that  there  should  be  a  head  to  preside  over  it  ; 
and  none  else  can  be  more  qualified  for  this  office  than  the  Vicar  of 
Jesus  Christ,  the  representative  of  the  Blessed  Peter  through  an  until 
terrupted  succession."  Method.  Jurisprud,  4,  do  libtrtatc  Ecclesix 
Herman. 

|  Prop,  ad  Cotu, 

15 


(    iw    ) 

done  to  the  Church  by  the  rash  judgment,  the  inconside* 
rate  vehemence  with  which  we  rejected  the  Pope."* 

At  a  somewhat  later  period,  we  find  the  learned  Pro- 
testant, Casaubon,  lamenting  over  those  deviations  from 
the  ancient  faith  into  which  the  violence  of  the  Reforma- 
tion wTas,  he  saw,  betraying  its  followers.  In  writing  to 
his  friend  Uittembogardt,  who  had,  in  a  conference  held 
between  them,  endeavoured  to  relieve  his  mind  from 
some  apprehensions  on  this  head,  he  says : — "  Why 
should  I  conceal  from  you  that  this  so  great  departure 
from  the  faith  of  the  ancient  Church  not  a  little  disturbs- 
me7"t — and,  in  the  same  letter,  after  remarking  that,  on 
the  subject  of  the  Sacraments,  Luther  differed  from  the 
ancients,  Zuinglius  from  Luther,  Calvin  from  both,  and 
others  from  Calvin,  he  adds,  "  If  we  go  on  in  this  wayf 
what  will  at  last  be  the  end  of  it!"J  By  Scaliger,  too, 
another  eminent  scholar,  and  a  mature  convert  to  Pro- 
testantism, it  is,  without  reserve,  admitted  that,  on  the 
important  subject  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  we  should  in 
vain  endeavour  to  prove  the  Reformed  Doctrine  from  the 
Fathers.  J 

While  these  and  a  number  of  other  such  enlightened 
Protestants  have  thus  candidly  acknowledged, — what, 
indeed,  only  the  party-spirit  of  sectarianism  could  deny, 
that  the  weight  of  ancient  authority  is  all  on  the  side  of 
the  Church  of  Rome,  the  Socinians,  who,  from  being  in- 
dependent of  such  authority  themselves,  could  the  better, 
of  course,  afford  to  be  candid  on  the  subject,  have  in  ge- 
neral been  found  to  agree  in  the  same  important  admis- 
sion. In  the  well-known  controversy  respecting  the  Eu- 
charist between  Smalcius  and  Franzius,  the  Racovian 
pastor  gave  up  freely  to  his  Lutheran  antagonist  all  the 
Fathers  of  the  fourth  century,  as  stanch  Transubstan- 
tiationists.  And  Socinus  himself  declared  that,  if  the 
Fathers  are  to  be  made  umpires  between  the  disputants, 
the  Church  of  Rome  cannot  fail  to  win  an  easy  triumph. 

It  is  by  those,  indeed,  who  are  not  in  communion  with 


*  Ep*  ad  Farel  Inter  Ep.  Calv. 

t  Mene  quid  dissimulem  heec  tantadiversitasa  fide  veteris  Ecclesice 
non  parum  turbat? 

X  Si  sic  pergimus,  quis  tandem  erit  exitus? 

§  Non  est  quod  conemur  ex  Patribus  hunc  articulem  demonstrare 
de  Caena.    Scaligerana. 


(     171     ) 

-either  of  the  contending  parties,  that  the  question  be- 
tween them  has  the  best  chance  of  being  disinterestedly 
decided;  and,  on  this  principle,  the  testimony  of  Gibbon 
may  be  thrown  into  the  same  scale  with  that  of  Sicinus, 
— the  infidel,  no  less  than  the  heresiarch,  having  pro- 
fessed his  inability  "  to  withstand  the  weight  of  historical 
evidence,  that,  within  the  first  four  or  five  centuries  of 
Christianity,  most  of  the  leading  doctrines  of  Popery 
were  already  introduced,  in  theory  and  practice."* 


-■»>Q  Q  Q4<«<*— 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 


French  Calvinists.—  The  Fathers  held  in  contempt  by  the  English 
Cal  vinists.— Policy  of  the  Church  of  England  Divines. — Bishop  Jewel. 
— Dr.  Waterland. 

Some  strenuous  efforts  were,  it  is  known,  made  by  the 
French  Calvinist,  Claude,  to  prove  that,  on  the  subject  of 
the  Eucharist,  the  Fathers  of  the  first  ages  were  in  perfect 
accordance  with  the  doctrine  of  the  Reformed  Church.f 
Far  the  greater  number,  however,  of  Calvinists,  both  of 
France  and  England,  held  the  .authority  of  these  venera- 
ble teachers  in  the  most  sovereign  contempt.^     "  Rely- 

*  Posthumous  Memoirs. 

f  The  utter  failure,  notwithstanding  his  learning  and  ability,  of  the 
French  controvertist,  Claude, — particularly  in  his  unlucky  appeal  to 
the  Eastern  Churches  against  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation, — 
left  a  clear  field,  on  this  subject,  to  M.  Arnaud  and  his  brother  cham- 
pions. 

X  One  of  the  sources  of  Calvin's  contempt  for  the  Fathers  is  to  be 
found,  perhaps,  in  his  ignorance  of  them: — "Calvin  (says  Longerue) 
avoit  la  S.  Augustin  et  S.  Thomas;  mais  il  n'avoit  pas  lu  les  autres 
Peres." 

In  a  satire  against  the  Calvinists,  by  Bishop  Womack,  called  "  The 
Examination  of  Tilenus,"  the  propensity  of  that  sect  to  depreciate  the 
Fathers  is  thus  ridiculed  from  the  lips  of  one  of  the  Examiners: — 
li  The  man  hath  a  competent  measure  of  your  ordinary,  unsanctified 
learning.  But  you  may  see  he  hath  studied  the  Ancient  Fathers,  more 
than  our  modern  divines,  such  as  Mr.  Calvin  and  Mr.  Perkins.  And, 
alas!  they  [the  Ancient  Fathers]  threw  away  their  enjoyments, — and 
their  lives,  too,  some  of  them,— for  they  knew  not  what.  They  under- 
stood little  or  nothing  of  the  Divine  Decrees,  or  the  power  of  grace 
and  godliness:  this  great  light  was  reserved  for  the  honour  of  after-, 
ages." 


(     172     ) 

ing,"  says  the  Protestant  Casaubon,  "  on  the  authority 
and  reputation  of  one  individual  (Calvin)  who  was  truly 
a  very  great  man,  though  not  free  from  liability  to  er- 
ror, these  persons  cannot  endure  the  bare  mention  of  the 
names  of  those  Holy  Fathers  whose  most  felicitous  ser- 
vices the  immortal  God  was  pleased  formerly  to  employ : 

but  whom  these  writers  wish  to  represent  as 

half  heathens,  unskilled  in  the  Scriptures,  silly,  foolish, 
stupid  and  impious  persons.  It  is  on  this  account  they 
attack  the  errors  of  the  Papists  in  such  a  manner  as  very 
frequently  to  inflict,  through  their  sides,  a  mortal  wound 
on  the  ancient  Church"* 

The  same  contempt  for  the  early  Fathers,  as  authori- 
ties in  doctrine,  prevailed,  at  the  same  period,  among 
the  high  Calvin istic  party  in  England ;  and  the  following 
passage  from  a  work  of  the  famous  Archbishop  Bancroft, 
(hi3  "Survey  of  the  pretended  Holy  Discipline,")  will 
show  the  lengths  to  which  this  feeling  of  slight  towards 
the  Church's  Ancients  was  carried : — "  In  a  certain  col- 
lege in  Cambridge  when  it  happeneth  that,  in  their  dis- 
putations, the  authority  either  of  St.  Augustine,  or  of  St. 
Ambrose,  or  of  St.  Jerome,  or  of  any  other  of  the  ancient 
Fathers,  nay,  the  whole  consent  of  them  all  together  is 
alleged ;  it  is  rejected  with  very  great  disdain ;  as,  '  What 
tell  you  me  of  St.  Augustine,  St.  Ambrose,  or  of  the  rest] 
I  regard  them  not  a  rush.'  " 

While  thus  the  Calvinists  of  England,  in  the  true  spi- 
rit of  their  master,  made  light  of  and  even  disdained  the 
authority  of  the  Fathers,  a  far  different  course  of  policy 
led  the  High-Church  Divines,  not  only  to  profess  the 
highest  feelings  of  reverence  for  those  writers,  but  to  en- 
deavour to  extort,  by  all  means,  from  their  pages  some 
sanction  for  their  own  Protestant  doctrines.  With  that 
sort  of  rash  vapouring  which  was  to  be  expected  from 
the  craven  spirit  he  had  already  displayed,  Bishop  Jewel 
went  so  far  as  to  challenge  publicly,  all  the  Catholics  in 
the  world  to  produce  a  single  clear  testimony  from  the 
writings  of  the  Fathers  in  support  of  any  of  those  tenets 
on  which  the  Protestants  differed  from  them.f    But  the 

*  Letter  to  Daniel  Heinsius,  1610. 

t  The  passage  of  the  Paul's  Cross  sermon  in  which  this  rash  chal- 
lenge is  enounced,  may  be  considered  in  one  respect,  valuable,  inas- 
much as  it  acknowledges  most  fully  the  authority  of  that  concurrent 


(     173     ) 

only  effect  of  this  absurd  vaunt  was,  as  the  Bishop's  bio- 
grapher, Humphrey,  confesses,  to  "give  scope  to  the  Pa- 
pists," and  do  injury  to  the  cause  it  was  meant  to  benefit. 

For  a  long  period,  however,  did  this  effort,  on  the  part 
of  the  Church  of  England  divines,  to  enlist  antiquity  on 
the  side  of  their  schism,  continue,  with  more  or  less  zeal, 
to  be  carried  on ;  and  upon  all  occasions  do  we  find  them 
appealing,  with  the  utmost  reverence,  to  the  Fathers, — 
though  having,  at  the  same  time,  the  avowal  of  the  ever 
candid  Chilling  worth  before  their  eyes,  that  it  was  the 
opposition  which  he  himself  remarked  between  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Fathers  and  those  of  Protestantism  that 
formed  one  of  his  leading  motives  for  embracing  the  Ro- 
mish faith;  or,  as  he  himself  states  his  reason,  "  Because 
the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of  Rome  is  conformable,  and 
the  doctrine  of  Protestants  contrary  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
Fathers,  by  the  confession  of  Protestants  themselves." 

It  has  been  thought  by  some  that  this  professed  defe- 
rence of  the  divines  of  that  period  for  the  authority  of 
writers  whose  every  page  breathes  rebuke  to  Protestant- 
ism, is  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  evident  leaning  towards 
Popery,  which  the  reigns  of  the  two  first  Stuarts  be- 
trayed ;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  this  circumstance, 
combined  with  the  aid  derived  from  the  testimony  of  tho 
Fathers,  in  those  contests  respecting  Church  government 
in  which  they  were  engaged  with  the  Puritans,  had  con- 
siderable share  in  moving  the  High-Church  divines  to 
this  otherwise  so  anomalous  a  coalition.  But  there  was, 
also,  another  cause,  of  at  least  equal  importance,  to  which 
this  feature  in  the  policy  of  the  Church  of  England  is  to 
be  assigned. 

I  have  before  remarked  that  those  Fathers  who  upheld 
most  strenuously  the  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation,  (as 
well  as  every  other  doctrine  classed  under  the  head  of  Po- 
pish errors,)  were  also  those  who  most  distinguished  them- 
selves by  maintaining  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity  in  its 


Rule  of  Faith,— concurrent  with,  and  illustrative  of  the  written  Word 
of  God,— which  the  Catholics  derive  from  their  old  Doctors  and  Coun- 
cils, and  from  the  traditions  and  examples  of  the  early  days  of  their 
Church-  Thus  begins  the  challenge  of  the  Bishop : — "  If  any  man 
alive  were  able  to  prove  any  of  these  articles,  by  any  one  clear  or 
plain  clause  or  sentence,  either  of  the  Scriptures  or  of  the  old  Doctors, 
or  of  any  old  General  Council,  or  by  any  example  of  the  Primitive 
Ciiurch,"  &c.  &c. 

15* 


(     174     ) 

purest,  most  amply  developed,  and  "bright,  consum- 
mate" form.  To  secure  the  aid  of  such  witnesses,  at  a 
time  when  the  spirit  of  Anti-Trinitarianism  was  abroad, 
in  defence  of  a  mystery,  which  the  Reformation  itself 
had  spared,  but  which  seemed  in  danger  of  falling  before 
some  of  its  progeny,  was  thought  to  be  an  acquisition  well 
worth  some  sacrifice  of  sincerity ;  and,  for  the  sake  of  pro- 
fiting thus  by  the  testimony  of  the  Fathers  on  one  of  the 
few  doctrines  common  to  both  parties,  the  Protestant  di- 
vines either  wilfully  shut  their  eyes  to  the  wide  diversity, 
on  other  points,  between  them,  or  else  endeavoured  to 
evade  these  differences  by  glosses  and  explanations,  of 
whose  utter  futility  and  deceptiveness  it  is  impossible 
that  they  should  not  themselves  have  been  aware. 

Of  this  very  intelligible  course  of  policy  we  find  a 
striking  exemplification  in  the  labours  of  one  of  the  most 
eminent  of  these  divines,  Dr.  Waterland.  Hence  was  it, 
that,  in  his  exceeding  zeal  for  the  triumph  of  Trinitarian- 
ism,  he  was  induced  to  uphold,  with  so  high  a  hand,  the 
authority  of  the  Fathers, — denominating  the  Three  first 
centuries  "  the  golden  age  of  the  Church,"  and  even  in- 
clining, for  the  honour  and  glory  of  his  idol,  Athanasius,  to 
extend  that  laudatory  distinction  so  far  down  as  the 
Fourth.*  Hence,  rather  than  risk  the  consequences  of 
the  impolitic  admission  that  allies  so  useful  to  the  cause 
of  orthodoxy,  on  one  great  point  of  Christianity,  were,  on 
every  other,  no  better  than  unreformed  Papists,  he  thought 
himself  bound  to  endeavour  to  prove  that,  on  the  equally 
vital  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist,  the  opinions  held  by  these 
ancient  teachers  were  no  less  in  accordance  with  those 
maintained  by  the  divines  of  the  Established  Church. 

The  work,  in  which  the  learned  Doctor  has  attempted 
this  task  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  refer  to,  and  shall 
here  only  add  that,  for  vague  and  forced  interpretation, 
for  unavailing  struggles  against  the  stream  of  testimony, 
and  the  betrayal  of  conscious  weakness  under  an  assumed 
aspect  of  strength,  it  is,  considering  the  acknowledged 
talents  and  erudition  of  the  writer,  unexampled,  perhaps, 

in  the  whole  annals  of  theological  controversy. 

■ 

*  Whiston,  on  the  other  hand,  whose  controversial  interest  drew 
him  in  quite  an  opposite  direction,  makes  the  power  of  performing 
miracles  stop  at  Athanasius,  giving,  as  his  reason,  that  "  the  forgeries 
of  Athanasius,  by  their  prevalence  in  the  Church,  provoked  God  to 
withdraw  his  miraculous  powers!" 


(     175     ) 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 


Pretended  reverence  of  the  English  divines  for  the  Fathers  unmasked, 
—Dr.  Whitby's  attack  on  the  Fathers:  followed  by  Middleton.— 
Early  Christians  proved  by  Middleton  to  have  been  Papists.— Re- 
flections.—Departure  for  Hamburgh. 

It  was  not  possible  that  such  a  system  of  evasion  and 
casuistry  as  I  have,  in  the  last  chapter,  described  should 
be  carried  on  much  longer ;  and  the  first  great  breach 
made  in  it  was  by  the  honest,  however  mistaken,  Dr. 
Whitby,  in  his  work  "  concerning  the  interpretation  of 
Scripture  after  the  manner  of  the  Fathers."  In  this 
Dissertation,  which  the  translator  of  Mosheim*  repre- 
sents as  "  the  forerunner  of  the  many  remarkable  at- 
tempts that  were  afterwards  made  to  deliver  the  right  of 
private  judgment,  in  matters  of  religion,  from  the  re- 
straints of  human  authority"  the  evidence  of  the  Fa- 
thers on  points  of  faith,  is  set  aside  with  a  degree  of  un- 
ceremonious freedom,  which  even  the  advocate  for  the 
right  of  private  judgment,  just  cited,  allows  to  have  been 
unwise  and  unsafe. 

But,  rash  as  it  was,  this  assault  by  Whitby  was  but 
the  forerunner  of  outbreaks  still  rasher.  The  same 
Church  which  had  produced  a  Jewel  and  a  Waterland 
was  sure,  in  the  natural  course  of  reaction,  to  produce 
also  a  Middleton.    Impatient  of  such  hollow  pretensions 

*  The  usual  consequences  of  such  bold  speculations  were,  indeed, 
exemplified  in  the  case  of  Whitby  himself,  who,  in  a  posthumous 
work  entitled,  "  the  Last  Thoughts  of  Dr.  Whitby,"  thus  expresses 
himself  respecting  the  Trinity  : — "  An  exact  scrutiny  into  things  doth 
often  produce  conviction  that  those  things  which  we  once  judged  to 
be  right  were,  after  a  more  diligent  inquiry  into  the  truth,  found  to  be 
wrong ;  and  truly  I  am  not  ashamed  to  say,  this  is  my  case.  For 
when  I  wrote  my  Commentaries  on  the  New  Testament,  I  went  on 
(too  hastily,  I  own)  in  the  common  beaten  road  of  other  reputed  or- 
thodox divines,  conceiving  that  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  in 
one  complex  notion,  were  one  and  the  same  God,  by  virtue  of  the 
same  individual  essence  communicated  from  the  Father.  This  con- 
fused notion,  I  am  now  fully  convinced,  by  the  arguments  I  have 
offered  here,  and  in  the  second  part  of  my  reply  to  Dr.  Waterland,  to 
be  a  thing;  impossible  and  full  of  gross  absurdities  and  contradictions.* 


(    w*   ) 

to  the  sanction  of  antiquity,  nor  much  scrupling,  in  his 
attacks  upon  what  he  deemed  to  be  Superstition,  how 
far  Religion  herself  might  be  endangered  by  the  onset, 
this  divine  brushed  away  boldly  all  that  film  of  mock 
reverence  which  his  brethren  had  been  so  long  weaving 
round  the  memory  of  the  Fathers,  and  at  once  held  up 
these  ancient  teachers  not  only  as  Papists,  in  doctrine, 
hut,  (his  main  object  being,  at  all  risks,  to  villify  Roman 
Catholicism,*)  as  Papists  of  the  most  superstitious  and 
drivelling  description. 

In  utter  defiance,  too,  of  the  deductions  which  might 
be  drawn  from  such  a  theory,  Middleton  hesitated  not  to 
reverse  the  ordinary  view  of  the  subject,  and  by  assert- 
ing the  first  ages  of  the  Church  to  have  been  the  least 
pure,  risked,  heedless  of  all  consequences,!  the  startling 
conclusion,  that  the  fountain  of  the  Christian's  faith  was 
most  corrupt  near  its  source.  In  this  reckless  paradox, 
however,  was  conveyed  an  undesigned  tribute  to  the  an- 
tiquity of  the  Catholic  Church;  since  identifying,  as  he 
did,  all  superstition  and  error  with  Popery,  it  is  plain 
that,  in  pronouncing  the  first  ages  of  Christianity  to  have 
Leen  the  least  pure,  he  had  no  other  meaning  in  his 
mind  than  that  they  were  the  most  Popish. 

*  This  object  he  by  no  means  scruples  to  avow.  "  Whereas  Popish 
Christianity  (he  says)  which  possesses  much  the  largest  share  of  tha 
Christian  world  would  be  undone  at  once  if  the  authority  of  the  Primi- 
tive Fathers  and  primitive  miracles  should  be  rejected  in  common  by 
all  Christians." — Remarks  on  Observations,  &cc.  Vol.2. 

t  Some  of  those  consequences  are  thus  significantly  shadowed  out 
by  one  of  his  opponents  : — The  author  must  either  renounce  his  argu* 
ment  or  the  Gospel.— Those  who  believe  the  Fathers  of  the  second  and 
third  centuries  to  be  more  credulous  than  those  of  the  fourth,  may 
fancy  the  Apostles,  to  have  been  the  most  eredulous  of  them  all.— if 
the  world  were  so  credulous  immediately  after  the  Apostles,  it  will  not 
be  easy  to  comprehend  how  it  should  have  been  much  less  so  in  the 
Apostles'  times: — the  author's  charge,  indeed,  stops  with  the  Fathers, 
but  his  arguments  do  not  stop  there  ;  for  if  the  Fathers  can  be  proved 
to  have  been  forgers  of  lies,  the  consequences  may  go  a  great  way." 

A  friend  and  correspondent  of  Middleton,  the  Archdeacon  of  Car- 
lisle, seems  to  have  been  fully  as  little  aware,  or  as  reckless,  of  the 
obvious  consequences  of  depreciating  these  early  teachers  as  was 
Middleton  himself.  "  Christianity  (says  this  wise  divine)  was  in  its 
infancy,  at  most  in  its  childhood,  when  these  men  wrote,  and,  there- 
fore, it  is  no  wonder  that  they  spake  as  children,  that  they  understood 
as  children,  that  they  thought  as  children."  In  another  place,  the 
Archdeacon,  under  an  evident  feeling  of  impatience  at  the  testimony 
which  Viae  Fathers  bear  to  the  truth  of  what  are  called  Popish  doc- 
trines, exclaims — "  Let  me  not  be  censured,  though  I  should  be  so 
bold  as  to  say,  that  we  should  have  understood  the  Scriptures  much 
better,  if  we  had  not  had  the  writings  of  the  Fathers!" 


(  1"  ) 

How  unreservedly,  indeed,  Dr.  Middleton  let  out  the 
whole  of  that  inconvenient  fact,  which  it  had  been  so  long 
the  policy  of  his  brother  divines  to  keep  veiled  in  the  back- 
ground,— namely,  that  primitive  Christianity  was  neither 
more  nor  less  than  modern  Popery, — will  appear  from 
some  Remarks  of  his  upon  a  Catechism  professing  to  be 
by  a  Protestant,  and  giving  an  account  of  the  chief  arti- 
ticles  of  belief  of  the  early  Church: — "  We  may  now  see 
(he  says)  from  a  clear  deduction  of  facts  and  circum- 
stances, as  they  are  set  forth  in  this  piece,  how  directly 
the  authority  of  the  Primitive  Fathers  tends  to  lead  us 
into  the  Church  of  Rome;  we  see  it  ascribing  a  supreme 
and  independent  power  to  the  Church,  asserting  that 
Popish  Sacraments,  a  propitiatory  sacrifice  of  Christ's 
body  and  blood,  both  for  the  living  and  the  dead ;  Prayers 
for  the  Dead,  to  procure  some  relief  and  improvement  of 
their  intermediate  state;  Exorcisms,  Chrisms,  Conse- 
crated Oil,  Sign  of  the  Cross,  Penances,  Confessions  to  a 
Priest,  Absolutions,  Relics  of  Saints,  &c.  &c." 

This  rash  sally  from  the  sanctuary,*  whatever  mis- 
chiefs it  may  have  otherwise  occasioned,  by  giving  the 
signal,  as  it  were  from  the  church-top,  to  all  sceptics  and 
infidels  for  a  general  assault  on  the  earliest  witnesses  of 
the  Christian  faith  was,  in  one  respect,  at  least,  produc- 
tive of  good  by  putting  to  shame  all  that  pretended  defe- 
rence to  the  Fathers  which  it  had  been  so  long  the  po- 
licy of  the  Divines  of  the  Church  of  England  to  adopt. 
Their  manifest  object  in  this  was  to  produce  an  impres- 
sion, among  all  who  knew  no  better,  that  those  ancient 
teachers  of  Christianity  lent  a  sanction  to  the  Reformed 
doctrines.  By  the  imprudence  of  Middleton,  however, 
this  instrument  of  delusion  was  rendered  powerless  in 
their  hands  ;f  for,  however  calumnious  and  false  were,  on 

*  "  Dr.  Middleton  (says  the  Norrisian  Professor,  Hey,)  does  not 
seem  to  fall  far  short  of  Mr.  Hume  on  Miracles."1 

t  In  the  following  passage  from  one  of  the  Lectures  of  Dr.  Hey,  we 
find  the  motives  of  both  the  parties,  in  these  two  opposite  views  of  the 
Fathers  pretty  fairly  stated: — '.'  Those  who  defend  the  pretensions  of 
the  fathers  do  it  through  fear^  lest,  if  they  should  appear  indefensible, 
the  cause  of  Christianity  should  suffer  by  the  condemnation  of  its  early 
propagators.  Those  who  accuse  the  Fathers  of  superstition,  weak- 
ness, or  falsehood,  consider  what  indelible  disgrace  they  shall  bring 
upon  Popery  by  showing  the  impurity  of  the  source  from  which  all  its 
distinguishing  doctrines  have  taken  their  rise." 

With  respect  to  the  accusations,  here  mentioned,  against  the  Fa 


(    l78    ) 

most  points,  his  representations  of  the  Fathers,  he  had,  at 
least,  abundantly  succeeded  in  showing  that  they  were, 
in  faith  and  practice,  any  thing  but  Protestants;  and  that, 
therefore,  to  refer  to  them  as  authorities  for  Protestant 
doctrines  was  a  deception  which,  once  well  exposed,  was 
not  likely  to  be  often,  or  with  any  success,  repeated. 

Accordingly,  we  have  seen  that,  from  that  period, — 
with  the  exception  now  and  then  of  a  Daubeny,  or  a  Fa- 
ber,  who  still  resort  to  the  old  battered  armoury  for  wea- 
pons,— the  Church  of  England  divines  have,  for  a  most 
prudent  reserve,  left  the  Fathers,  as  auxiliaries,  undis- 
turbed on  their  shelves:  and  the  few  departures  from  this 
safe  policy*  into  which  they  have  been  tempted  must 
serve,  more  and  more,  to  confirm  them  in  the  advised- 
ness  of  their  rule.  The  late  Bishop  Tomline,  for  instance, 
in  calling  in  the  aid  of  the  Fathers  against  the  Cal- 
vinists,  only  showed  how  totally  misapplied  and  peri- 
lous was  their  alliance  in  such  a  cause ; — the  very  same 
testimonies  which  he  thus  brings  to  bear  against  the  te- 
nets of  modern  Calvinism  being  no  less  fatally  efficient 
against  the  doctrines  of  the  first  Reformers,  as  well  as 

thers,  of"  superstition,  weakness,  &c."  they  are  the  same  that  have, 
for  centuries,  been  brought  forward  against  the  religion  which  glories 
in  having  followed  them;  and  the  best  answer  to  all  such  attacks  on 
the  early  teachers  of  Christianity  is  to  be  found  in  those  wise  and  sar- 
castic words  which  I  have  once  before  quoted  from  Lardner : — "  Poor 
ignorant  Primitive  Christians.  I  wonder  how  tbey  could  find  the  way 
to  heaven.  They  lived  near  the  times  of  Christ  and  his  Apostles.  They 
highly  rallied  and  diligently  read  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  some  of  them 
wrote.  Commentaries  upon  them;  but  yet  it  seems  they  knew  little  or  nothing 

of  their  religion! Truly,  we  of  these  times  are  very  happy  in 

our  orthodoxy.'* 

*  The  two  very  interesting  works  of  Bishop  Kaye,  relating  to  St. 
Justin  and  Tertullian,  are  hardly  to  be  accounted" exceptions  to  the 
system  of  policy  here  noticed,  as  this  accomplished  scholar  has  ap- 
proached his  subject  far  more  in  the  spirit  of  a  Dilettante  than  a  di- 
vine, and  treated  the  Fathers  very  much  as  he  might  the  classics  of  a 
barbarous  age,  making  their  works  subservient  to  the  illustration  of 
the  peculiar  customs  and  opinions  of  their  times.  How  coolly  his 
lordship  deals  with  some  matters  of  opinion  and  evidence  which,  in 
the  days  of  the  chivalry  of  controversy,  would  have  made  a  thousand 
folios  leap  from  their  shelves,  will  appear  by  the  following  specimen. 
Referring  to  the  opinions  of  Tertullian  respecting  the  Eucharist,  the 
Bishop  says  that  this  Father  "  speaks  of  feeding  on  the  fatness  of  the 
Lord's  body,  that  is,  on  the  Eucharist,'  and  '  of  our  flesh  feeding  on  the 
body  and  blood  of  Christ,  in  order  that  our  soul  may  be  fattened  of 
God.'  These  are,  it  must  be  allowed,  (adds  the  Bishop,)  strong  ex- 
pressions."  Strong,  indeed !— though  forming,  as  his  lordship  ought  to 
know,  but  one  of  a  countless  host  of  such  proofs,  that  Tertullian'?  doe- 
trine  of"'  feeding  on  the  Lord's  body."  really  and  corporeally,  was  the 
■universal  belief  of  the  early  Christian  Church." 


(     179     ) 

against  the  predominant  spirit  of  the  articles  of  his  ovvri 
Church.* 

I  have  now  satisfactorily,  I  trust, — though  far  more  at 
length  than  I  had,  at  starting,  anticipated, — succeeded  in 
establishing  the  very  material  position  which  I  had  laid 
down,  namely,  that  the  antiquity  claimed  by  the  Catho- 
lics for  the  doctrines  of  their  Church,  or,  in  other  wordsr 
the  identity  which  they  maintain  exists  between  their 
system  of  belief  and  that  which  the  first  teachers  of  Chris- 
tianity promulgated,  has  been  long,  by  Protestants  them- 
selves, reluctantly,  but  still  most  effectively,  admitted. 

On  finding  thus  remarkably  corroborated  the  conclu- 
sion to  which  I  myself  had  come,  that  what  is  now  called 
Popery  was,  in  fact,  the  whole  and  sole  faith  of  the  pri- 
meval Christians,  I  know  not  whether  the  prevalent  feel- 
ing in  my  mind  was  that  of  triumph  or  mortification.  In 
the  first  place,  had  these  important  concessions  been 
somewhat  earlier  known  to  me,  I  might  have  been  spared 
all  those  pains  of  parturition  which  the  first  volume  of  thia 
work  so  unnecessarily  cost  me; — my  situation  now  being 
something  like  that  of  the  famous  Cardinal  Sfondrata,  of 
whose  book  on  Predestination  it  was  said,  "  que  s'il  avoit 
commence  son  ouvrage  par  la  seconde  partie,  il  se  seroit 
ejKirgne  la  peine  de  composer  le  premiere."  In  the  se- 
cond place,  I  had,  I  confess,  flattered  myself,  as  do  the 
self-taught  in  all  lines  of  study,  that  the  results  which  I 
had  thus  lighted  upon  were  of  my  own  peculiar  and  ex- 
clusive finding  out.  The  discovery,  therefore,  that  so 
many  others  had  arrived  at  exactly  the  same  point  before 
me,  gave  to  my  task  a  degree  of  triteness  for  which  I  was 
by  no  means  prepared,  and  not  a  little  dimmed,  in  my 
eyes,  the  glory  of  my  research  and  scholarship. 

On  a  review  of  the  whole,  however,  the  effect  of  all 
these  inquiries  upon  my  mind  was  still  farther  to  stimu- 
late me  to  the  prosecution  of  the  pursuit  in  which  I  had 

*  "  The  Evangelical  Clergy  (says  the  Bishop's  able  opponent,  Mr. 
Scott)  do  not  contend  that  our  Articles,  Liturgy,  &c  ,  are  in  every  tit- 
tle exactly  coincident  with  the  sentiments  of  Calvin  ;  but  that  they  con- 
tain, in  a  more  unexceptionable  form,  all  that  they  deem  essential  in  his 
doctrine." 

Dr.  Maclaine,  too,  (the  translator  of  Mosheim)  says  of  the  Ultra-Cal- 
vinist  proceedings  of  the  Synod  of  Dort,  "  Its  decisions,  in  point  of 
doctrine,  were  looked  upon  by  many,  and  not  without  reason,  as 
agreeable  to  the  tenor  of  the  Book  of  Articles  established  by  law  in 
the  Church  of  England." 


(    isu    ) 

Ei  j*ed ;  my  strong  persuasion  being  that  there  must, 
after  all,  be  something  more  in  the  nature  of  the  Protes- 
tant Church,  than  I  was  yet  aware  of,  to  enable  her  to 
hold  her  ground,  even  so  long  as  a  constituent  portion  of 
the  Christian  world,  notwithstanding  her  thus  acknow- 
ledged defection  from  most  of  the  doctrines  of  the  early 
Church,  as  well  as  of  that  mark  of  the  great  Father  of 
Heresies  which  I  have  shown  to  be  branded  on  her  brow. 
"  In  Germany,"  exclaimed  I  to  myself,  "  if  any  where,  I 
shall  be  sure  to  find  her  in  her  first,  genuine  shape,  with 
all  the  associations,  too,  which  such  antiquity  as  it  is  in 
her  power  to  boast,  combined  with  the  influences  of  the 
1  Genius  Loci,'  are  able  to  shed  around  her  birth-place." 
After  taking  leave,  therefore,  in  an  affectionate  letter, 
of  my  fair  Calvinistic  friend,  and  promising  faithfully  to 
attend  to  her  commissions  respecting  Luther's  Table 
Talk  and  the  Pastor  Fido.  I  set  out  from  Dublin  on  the 
twentieth  of  August,  and  staying  but  a  few  days  in  Lon- 
don, on  my  way,  arrived  at  Hamburgh  about  the  end  of 
the  month. 


©@ 


CHAPTER  XXXVII, 


Hamburgh.—  Hagedorn.— Klopstock  and  his  wife  Mela. — Miss  Anna 
Maria  a  Schurman,  and  her  lover  Labadie. — Account  of  them  for 
the  Tract  Society.— Forwarded  through  the  hands  of  Miss  *  *. 


From  a  traveller  starting  upon  a  tour  so  purely  theo- 
logical in  its  object,  the  reader  will  hardly  be  prepared 
to  expect  much  of  that  variety  of  observation  which,  in 
general,  constitutes  the  chief  charm  of  the  wayfarer's 
narrative.  With  the  neighbourhood  of  Hamburgh  I  found 
some  names  and  recollections  associated  in  which,  as  a 
lover  of  poetry,  and  of  literature  in  general,  I  could  not 
but  feel  interested.  How  far  this  city  has  cause  to  take 
pride  for  having  been  the  birth-place  of  Hagedorn,  my 
entire  ignorance  of  that  Anacreontic  poet's  writings  for- 
bade me  to  judge ;  but  of  the  merits  of  Klopstock  the  va- 


(     181     ) 

rious  translations  of  his  writings  had  enabled  me  to  form 
some  notion,  and  I  accordingly  visited  the  tomb  of  this 
famous  poet  with  all  due  reverence; — though  less,  I  am 
ashamed  to  confess,  on  account  of  his  renowned  Messiah, 
than  for  the  sake  of  the  memory  of  his  devoted  and  inte- 
resting wife,  Meta.* 

In  the  mood  of  mind,  however,  into  whieh  my  late 
studies  had  thrown  me,  neither  poets,  nor  the  fair  idols 
of  poets,  had  much  chance  of  occupying  any  great  por- 
tion of  my  attention ;  and  the  only  little  romance  I  could 
get  up,  illustrative  of  the  neighbourhood  of  Hamburgh, 
had  for  its  heroine  the  learned  and  once  famed  Miss 
Anna  Maria  a  Schurman,  a  lady  celebrated  by  the  pens 
of  Vossius,  Beverovicius,  and  other  erudite  Dutchmen, 
but  to  whose  fame  and  name  I  was  now  for  the  first  time 
introduced. 

The  history  of  this  fair  Savante,  from  the  time  when 
she  first  undertook  (as  one  of  her  biographers  expresses 
it)  "  to  be,  like  Luther  and  Calvin,  the  architect  of  heT 
own  faith,"  till  she  became  the  disciple  and,  it  is  said, 
wife  of  the  notorious  Labadie,  would  afford,  in  a  small 
compass,  as  edifying  a  picture  of  the  effects  of  the  Re- 
formation as  could  be  desired.  Her  lover  Labadie  who, 
at  last,  rose  to  the  "  bad  eminence  "  of  being  at  the  head 
of  a  sect  of  Protestant  fanatics,  was  one  of  those  preach- 
ers of  piety  and  practicers  of  profligacy,  who  knew  so 
well  and  artfully  how  to  avail  themselves  of  the  excited 
fancies  of  the  female  Reformers  of  that  period ;  and  one 
of  the  precious  doctrines  which  he  is  known  to  have  held 
was  that  "  God  could  and  would  deceive^  and  that  he 
had  sometimes  actually  done  so !" 

A  member  of  tire  Catholic  Church  till  his  fortieth  year, 
Labadie  saw  what  a  field  was  opened  by  the  outbreak  of 
the  Reformation,  as  well  for  the  license  of  private 
passion  as  for  the  freaks  of  private  opinion ;  and,  having 
first  distinguished  himself  in  his  own  church  by  endea- 

*  The  wide  difference  there  is  between  the  selfish  sensibility  of  a 
man  of  genius  and  the  warm,  devoted,  unconscious  generosity  of  a 
natural-hearted  woman,  is  most  characteristically  exemplified  in  the 
respective  characters  of  Klopstock  and  his  wife,  as  exhibited  in  tlteir 
Memoirs. 

The  grave  of  this  poet  is  at  Ottenson,  a  smart  village  near  Hamburgh, 
where  he  lies  buried  in  the  church-yard,  beneath  a  large  linden- tree 
under  which  he  used  to  sit. 

16 


(     182     ) 

vouring  to  corrupt  a  whole  convent  full  of  nuns,  he 
abandoned  the  Catholic  faith  and  turned  Calvinist 
minister.  The  popularity  which,  in  this  new  charac- 
ter, he  attained,*  as  a  preacher,  was  almost  without 
example;  and  the  contrast  known  to  exist  between 
the  spiritual  doctrines  which  he  taught,  and  the  very 
anti-spiritual  tenour  of  his  private  life  was  not  without 
its  attraction  for  many  of  his  fair  disciples.  Of  the  man- 
ner in  which  he  still  ventured  to  instruct  his  female  fol- 
lowers, an  instance  is  given  by  Bayle,  in  rather  an  amu- 
sing anecdote,  which  only  a  philosopher  like  Bayle  could 
well  venture  to  tell ; — and,  after  a  career,  not  unlike 
that  of  some  of  the  old  Gnostic  heresiarchs,  this  worthy 
off-shoot  of  the  Reformation  died  at  Altona,  in  the  arms 
of  his  last  love,  the  pious  and  learned  Anna  Maria  a 
Schurman,  in  the  year  1674. 

Out  of  all  this,-— difficult  as  were  some  of  the  particu- 
lars to  manage, — I  contrived  during  my  leisure  moments 
at  Hamburgh,  to  make  out  a  plausible,  and  even  decent 
little  religious  story  which  I  despatched  to  Miss  *  *,  as 
the  first  fruits  of  my  foreign  inquiries  after  Protestantism, 
begging  her  to  present  it  to  the  Religious  Tract  Society, 
of  which  I  knew  her  to  be  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
members. 

The  account  given  of  her  own  early  life  by  Miss  Schur- 
man, in  a  work  published  at  Altona,  furnished  me  fortu- 
nately with  some  anecdotes,  respecting  her  infant  days, 
which  could  not  be  otherwise  than  interesting  to  the 
evangelical  world.  We  find  recorded  here,  for  instance, 
the  first  young  stirrings  of  that  piety  which  shone  forth, 
in  afler  days,  so  signally,  under  the  auspices  of  the  "John 
of  Jesus/'  as  her  lover,  Jean  Labadie,  styled  himself; 
and,  among  other  things,  we  are  told  of  the  effect  pro- 
duced upon  her,  when  she  was  a  little  girl  not  quite  four 
years  old,  by  the  first  Question  and  Answer  in  the  Hei- 
delburgh  Catechism,  which  filled  her,  she  assures  us, 
with  "so  deep  a  sense  of  love  for  Christ,  that  not  all  the 

*  "  It  is  remarkable  enough  (says  Mosheim's  Commentator)  that  al- 
most all  the  sectaries  of  anenthusiastical  turn  were  desirous  of  enter- 
ing into  communion  with  Labadie.  The  Brownists  offered  him  their 
Church  at  Middleburgh,  when  he  was  suspended  by  the  French  synod 
from  his  episcopal  functions.  The  Quakers  sent  their  two  leading 
members,  Robert  Barclay  and  George  Keith  to  Amsterdam,  while  he 
resided  there,  to  examine  his  doctrine."—  Vol  5. 


(     183     ) 

years  passed,  since  then,  had  been  able  to  efface  the 
lively  recollection  of  that  moment."  She  then  informs 
us*  of  her  early  taste  for  making  babies,  in  wax,  as  well 
as  the  singular  propensity  which  she  had,  through  life, 
for  eating  spiders. 

From  this  interesting  part  of  her  history  I  was  enabled 
to  trace  her  to  the  full  meridian  of  her  fame,  when,  mis- 
tress of  twelve  languages,  and  writing  fluently  in  four  of 
them, — besides  being  a  proficient  in  music,  painting, 
sculpture  and  engraving, — she  had  the  Spanheims,  the 
Heinsiuses,  the  Vossiuses  at  her  feet,  and  returned 
learned  answers  to  the  Epistolic  Questions  of  the  Dutch 
Doctor,  Beverovicius.*  The  literary  memoirs,  indeed, 
of  this  lady  might  be  made  to  include  within  their  range 
some  of  the  names  of  most  celebrity  on  both  sides  of  that 
controversy  to  which  the  doctrines  of  the  famous  Synod 
of  Dort  gave  rise.  Thus  with  Rivetus,  the  bitter  oppo- 
nent of  Grotius,  she  held  a  long  correspondence  of  which 
the  object  was  to  discuss  the  often  agitated  question 
"  Whether  it  was  proper  to  instruct  a  Christian  woman 
in  the  Belles  Lettres;" — and  it  is  not  difficult,  through 
all  the  civility  of  her  Calvinist  correspondent,  to  perceive 
that  this  Champion  of  "  Immutable  Decrees,"  could  he 
have  had  his  own  will,  would  not  suffer  one  of  the  sex 
to  soar  an  inch  above  the  work-bag. 

While  such  homage  was  paid  to  her  fame  by  this  high- 
flying Calvinist,  she  boasted  also  some  warm  admirers  in 
the  Arminian  line ;  of  which  number  was  Gaspar  Bar- 
Iobus,  the  celebrated  Latin  poet,  whom  the  Gomarists 
ejected  from  all  his  employs  in  the  Church  for  no  other 
reason  than  that  he  refused  to  believe,  with  the  Synod 
of  Dort,  that  God  had  created  the  greater  portion  of  man- 
kind for  the  sole  purpose  of  damning  them.  Among  the 
works  of  this  Arminian  poet  we  find  some  verses  to  our 
erudite  heroine,  the  concluding  lines  of  which  may  be 


*  Pectus  meura  tam  magnogaudio  atqueintimo  amoris  Christi  sen 
su  fuisse  perfusum,  ut  omnessubsequentes  anni  istius  momenti  vivam 
memoriam  delere  potuerint  nunquam. — ^vkKh^ia^  seu  melioris  partis 
Eleclio, 

*  Epistol.  Qusest.  Roterod.  1644.  There  is  also  among  the  "  Re- 
sponsa  Doctorum,"  published  by  the  same  writer  in  1G39,  an  Answer 
by  Miss  Schurman.  To  the  illustrious  list  of  her  correspondents  the 
names  of  Salmasius  and  Huygens  are  to  be  added. 


(     134     ) 

cited  as  a  specimen  of  the  free  and  rakish  style  in  which 
learned  ladies  used  at  that  period,  to  be  addressed  by 
learned  gentlemen : — 


Scribimus  hsec  loquimurque  tibi. 


Sin  minus  ilia  placent,  et  si  magis  oscula  vester 
Sexus  amat,  nos  ilia  domi  debere  putabis,* 

The  change  from  this  brilliant,  but,  as  Miss  Schurman 
afterwards  deemed  it,  vain-glorious  period  of  her  life,f  to 
that  stage  when  religion  and  Labadie  took  possession  of 
her  whole  soul,  opened  a  field  for  Tract  eloquence  of 
which  I  was  not  backward,  as  may  be  supposed,  in  avail- 
ing myself; — that  saintly  time,  when  instead  of  bending 
over  the  profane  pages  of  a  Horace  or  a  Virgil,  she  had 
no  longer  eyes  or  thoughts  but  for  such  Evangelical 
writings  as  the  "  Herald  of  King  Jesus,*'  "  the  Scng- 
Royal  of  Jesus,"  and  other  such  lucubrations  of  her  spi- 
ritual lover;  and  when  looking  back  with  shame  to  the 
praises  which  the  learned  world  had  heaped  upon  her, 
she  solemnly,  and  in  the  presence  of  the  Sun,  as  she  tells 
us,  cast  away  and  renounced  all  such  objects  of  her  for- 
mer vanity  .| 

*  Heroic— As  a  Reformed  Minister  did  not  think  it  unbecoming  of 
him  to  write  these  gay  verges,  one  who  is  neither  a  minister,  nor  Re- 
formed, may,  I  presume,  venture  thus  to  paraphrase  them: 

Now,  perhaps,  having  taxed  my  poetical  art, 

To  indite  you  this  erudite  letter, 
You've  enough  of  the  sex,  after  all,  in  your  heart, 

To  like  a  few  kisses  much  better. 
And  in  sooth,  my  dear  Anne,  if  you're  pretty  as  wise, 

I  might  offer  the  gifts  you  prefer, 
But  that  Barbara  tells  me,  with  love  in  her  eyes, 

I  must  keep  all  my  kisses  for  her. 

It  should  be  mentioned,  for  the  better  understanding  of  these  verses, 
that  Barlsus  had  never  seen  his  fair  correspondent,  and  that  Barbara, 
whom  he  here  mentions,  was  his  wife.  Thermal  fate  of  this  poor  poet 
was  melancholv.  Whether  from  the  triumph  of  the  Gomarists,  or  the 
loss  of  all  his  Church  preferment,  his  mind  became  at  last  so  deranged 
that  he  fancied  himself  to  be  made  of  butter,  and  lived  in  constant  fear 
of  approaching  the  tire. 

t  There  is  an  edition  of  her  works,  in  Hebrew,  Greek,  Latin,  and 
French.    Lugd.  Batav.  Elzevir.    1648. 

X  li  Eoque  omnio  mea  scripta,  quee  ejusmodi  turpem  animi  mei  laxi- 
tatem  vel  mundanum  et  vanum  isium  genium  redolent,  hoc  loco,  do- 


(     185     ) 

In  this  state  of  pious  self-abasement  did  Miss  Schur- 
man  pass  the  remainder  of  her  days; — fully  recompensed, 
however,  for  her  sacrifice  of  the  Beveroviciuses  and  Ri- 
vetuses  by  those  inward  illuminations  of  the  spirit  and 
familiar  communings  with  God  by  which  she  supposed 
herself  to  be  favoured ;  and  having  received,  as  has  been 
already  mentioned,  the  last  sigh  of  her  Apostle,  Labadie, 
at  Altona,  she  departed  this  life,  not  long  after  him,  in 
the  year  1678. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 


Blasphemous  doctrine  of  Labadie— held  also  by  Luther,  Beza,  fee- 
Reflections. — Choice  of  University. — Gottingen  :— Introduced  to 
Professor  Scratchenbach. — Commence  a  course  of  lectures  on  Pro- 
testantism. 

Though  it  was  my  fate  thus,  at  the  very  entrance  into 
my  new  field  of  research,  to  be  encountered  by  so  strong 
a  specimen  of  the  effects  of  German  Protestantism,  I 
must  beg  the  reader  to  rest  assured  that  it  was  by  no 
means  my  wish  to  attach  undue  importance  upon  any 
such  insulated  instances  of  fanaticism  or  absurdity,  well 
knowing  that  there  never  existed  a  system  of  doctrine  so 
pure  as  that,  among  those  professing  it,  some  such  ex- 
amples of  un worthiness  might  not  be  found. 

The  only  point  fairly  to  be  considered  is,  whether 
there  were  not,  deep-laid  in  the  very  principles  of  the  Refor- 
mation itself,  the  seeds  of  all  such  extravagancies  as  we 
have  been  just  now  considering ;  and  whether  the  pro- 
fligate and  but  too  successful  apostleship  of  Labadie  and 
the  fantastic  devotion  of  his  disciple,  Anna  Maria,  were 
not  as  naturally  and  necessarily  the  result  of  that  un- 
bounded license  which  was  accorded  to  private  judgment, 

ram  Sole  (ad  exemplum  candidissimi  Patrum  Augustini)  retracto  ;  nee 
amplius  pro  meis  agnosco  :  simulque  omnia  aliorum  scripta  et  potis- 
sirnum  Carmini  Panegyrica  que  vanae  gloria  atque  istee  impietatis 
charactere  notata  sunt,  tanquam  a  mea  conditione  ac  professione 
aliena  procul  a  me  removeo  ac  rejicio." 

16* 


(     186     ) 

&t  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  as  the  similar  excesses  of 
most  of  the  early  heretics  were  the  fruits  of  the  same 
principle  equally  by  them  asserted  and  put  in  practice. 

And  here,  I  must  beg  especial  attention  to  a  fact, 
which,  to  most  readers,  will,  I  have  no  doubt,  appear  as 
startling  and  almost  incredible  as  it  did,  when  first  I  hap- 
pened to  light  on  it,  in  the  course  of  my  studies,  to  my- 
self. The  blasphemous  doctrine  held  by  Labadie,  that 
"  God  could  and  would  deceive  mankind,  and  that  he 
had  sometimes  actually  done  so,"  is  one  that  with  diffi- 
culty we  can  conceive  admissible,  for  a  single  instant, 
into  any  sane  mind.  But,  once  admitted,  there  is  no  ex- 
tent of  demoralization  and  corruption  to  which,  under 
the  shelter  of  God's  own  example,  it  might  not  be  made 
to  lend  a  sanction.  What  then  will  be  said,  by  those 
who  now,  for  the  first  time,  learn  the  fact  that  such  was 
the  impious  doctrine  of  most  of  the  leading  Reformers, 
and  that  it  is  in  short  asserted,  in  express  terms,  by  Lu- 
ther himself! 

In  order  to  get  rid  of  some  of  the  difficulties  which  be- 
set the  doctrine  of  Election  and  Reprobation,  and  recon- 
cile those  passages  of  God's  Word  wherein  the  wicked 
are  invited  to  repentance  with  those  predestinating  de- 
crees by  which  he  has  already  fixed  and  sealed  their 
doom,  the  first  Reformers  found  it  necessary  to  adopt  the 
monstrous  supposition  that,  in  such  addresses  to  the  re- 
probate, the  Almighty  is  not  serious,  nor,  in  thus  inviting 
them  to  repentance  and  amendment,  really  means  what 
he  says! — "  He  speaks  thus,"  said  they,  "  by  his  revealed 
will,  but,  by  his  secret  will,  he  wills  the  contrary,"— or, 
as  Beza  expounds  it,  u  God  occasionally  conceals  some- 
thing which  is  contrary  to  that  which  he  manifests  in 
his  Word!"* 

But  it  is  by  Luther  himself  that  this  gross  blasphemy 
has  been  brought  forward  in  its  most  prominent  and  most 
revolting  relief.  In  commenting  on  Gen.  xxii.  and  on 
the  conduct  of  God,  a3  there  represented,  towards  Abra- 

*  Celari  interdura  a  Deo  aliquid  ei  quod  in  verbo  patefacit  repug- 
nans.— Resp.  ad  Act.  Colloq.  Mompel— The  Calvinist  Piscator,  too, 
equally  charges  God  with  this  rick :  "  Deum  interdum  verbo  signifi 
care  velle,  quod  revera  non  vult,  aut  nolle  quod  revera  vult."  {Disp. 
Contra  Schafm.)  "  In  his  word  God  sometimes  intimates  that  he  wills 
what  he  really  does  not  will,  or  that  he  does  not  will ,  what  he  in  re- 
alty does  will." 


(     187     ) 

ham,  (which  is  one  of  the  instances  given  of  this  alleged 
opposition  between  the  revealed  and  the  secret  will  01 
the  Almighty)  Luther  thus  wrrites : — 

"  Such  a  species  of  falsehood  as  this  is  salutary  to  us. 
Happy  indeed  shall  we  be  if  we  can  learn  this  art  from 
God.     He  attempts  and  proposes  the  work  of  another, 
that  he  may  be  able  to  accomplish  his  own.     By  our  af- 
fliction he  seeks  his  own  sport  and  our  salvation.     Thus 
God  said  to  Abraham,  '  Slay  thy  son,'  &c. — How  1    In 
tantalizing,  pretending  and  mocking.*  He  likewise  occa- 
sionally feigns,  as  though  he  would  depart  far  away  from 
us  and  kill  us.     Which  of  us  believes  that  this  is  all  a 
pretence?    Yet  with  God  this  is  only  sport,  and  (were  we 
permitted  thus  to  speak)  it  is  a  falsehood.]     It  is  a  real 
death  which  all  of  us  have  to  suffer.     But  God  does  not 
act  seriously,  according  to  his  own  showing  or  represen- 
tation.    It  is  dissimulation,  and  he  is  only  trying  whe- 
ther we  be  willing  to  lose  present  things  and  life  itself 
for  his  account. " 

It  may  be  questioned  whether,  among  all  the  blasphe- 
mies that  have  ever  been  written  or  spoken,  any  thing 
more  revoltingly  blasphemous  than  this  has  ever  yet 
fallen  from  the  tongue  or  pen. 

Had  I  at  the  moment,  indeed,  when  I  was  setting  out 
from  Hamburgh,  been  shown  but  the  few  unhallowed 
sentences  just  cited,  they  would  have  spared  me,  I  think, 
all  the  trouble  and  disappointment  of  my  journey ;  being 
sufficient,  of  themselves,  to  have  convinced  me  (though 
nothing  more  of  this  Reformer's  doctrines  had  been 
known  to  me,)  that,  from  a  mind  capable  of  forming  such 
notions  of  a  Divine  Being  as  are  there  expressed,  nothing 
worthy  of  supplanting  a  particle  of  the  ancient  faith  could 

*  Deua  dixit  ad  Abrahamum, '  Oceide  Filium,  &c.'— Qiuomodo?  Lu* 
dendo,  simulando,  ridendo. 

t  Atque  apud  Deura  est  lusus,  et,  si  liceret  ita  dicere,  mendacium  est. 
—We  find  a  similar  view  taken  of  God's  conduct,  respecting  Isaac,  by 
a  Rationalist  or  rather  infidel  writer  of  the  17th  century,  who  founds 
upon  it  a  theory  for  the  solution  of  such  mysterious  doctrines  as  Ori- 
ginal Sin,  Imputed  Righteousness,  &c— All  these  mysteries,  he  main- 
tains, are  but  a  sort  of  legal  fictions,  by  which  God,  who  prefers  such 
sinuous  and  mystic  ways  to  the  direct  and  natural  modes  of  proceed- 
ing among  mankind,  chooses  to  work  out  his  designs. — "  NolnitDeus 
opus  hoc  perficere  directo  illo  et  naturali  ordine,  quo  pleraeque  res  ge- 
runtur  apud  homines,  sed  per  sinuosos  mysteriorum  anfractus,  &c."  — 
Prceadamitw,  sive  Erercitatio,  ftc. 


(     188     ) 

have  emanated.  I  was,  at  that  time,  however,  but  slightly 
versed  in  the  theological  part  of  the  history  of  the  Refor- 
mation, and  regarding  the  doctrine,  therefore,  of  Labadie 
as  his  own  peculiar  blasphemy,  without  any  sanction  for 
such  impious  trifling  from  the  chief  leaders  of  his  sect,  I 
dismissed  the  circumstance  wholly  from  my  thoughts, 
and,  with  renewed  zeal  of  research,  prepared  cheerfully 
and  even  sanguinely  for  my  projected  tour. 

After  some  deliberation  with  myself  as  to  the  particu- 
lar university,  which  it  might  be  most  advisable  for  me 
to  select  as  the  first  scene  of  my  studies,  I  at  last  decided 
for  the  school  memorable  in  theological  annals,  as  having 
produced  a  Mosheim,  a  Michaelis,  an  Ammon,  an  Ei- 
chorn,  and  proceeded  direct,  without  any  delay  in  the 
course  of  my  route,  to  Gottingen. 

It  would  have  been  my  wish, — and  I  had  made  a  pro- 
mise, to  that  effect,  to  Miss  *  *, — to  put  my  mind  in  a 
sort  of  training,  for  the  reception  of  Luther's  Gospel,  by 
a  pilgrimage  to  some  of  those  places  which  are  now  con- 
nected immortally  with  his  name.  The  cell  at  Eifurth, 
for  instance,  where  as  an  humble  Augustinian  monk,  he, 
in  whom  the  Vatican  was  so  soon  to  meet  with  a  counter 
thunderer,  used  to  solace  his  lonely  intervals  of  devotion 
with  the  flute; — the  picturesque  ruins  of  the  Wartburg, 
under  whose  roof  he  lay  concealed  from  his  enemies,  and 
to  which,  (in  the  modesty  of  his  heart,  comparing  him- 
self to  St.  John,)  he  gave  the  appellation  of  "  his  Patmos ;" 
— these  and  a  few  more  such  romantic  visits  would,  I 
felt,  have  wound  me  up  to  the  true  Lutheran  pitch,  and 
besides  have  furnished  me  with  materials  for  such  a  let- 
ter to  Miss  *  *  as  would  have  delighted  that  future  Rec- 
toress  of  Ballymudragget  prodigiously. 

It  was  while  at  the  Wartburg,  by  the  way,  and  while 
occupied  with  his  famous  translation  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, that  Luther  was  frequently,  as  he  thought,  visited 
by  the  Devil,  in  the  shape  of  a  large  blue-bottle  fly.  His 
well-known  visiter,  however,  did  not  succeed  in  giving 
much  interpretation  to  his  biblical  toils;  for  Luther, 
*'  who  (to  use  the  words  of  an  intelligent  traveller)  knew 
Satan  in  all  his  disguises,  rebuked  him  manfully,  and  at 
length,  losing  all  patience,  as  the  concealed  devil  still 
huzzed  round  his  pen,  started  up,  and,  exclaiming  ■  Willst 


(     189     ) 

du  dann  nicht  ruhig  bleiben!1  hurled  his  huge  ink-bottle 
at  the  Prince  of  Darkness."* 

To  have  visited  all  the  scenes  of  such  characteristic 
displays  would  have  been,  I  was  well  aware,  the  most 
edifying  mode  of  preparation  I  could  adopt  for  the  nearer 
acquaintance  I  was  about  to  form  with  the  doctrines  of 
the  chief  actor  in  them.  As  it  was,  however,  the  only 
initiatory  regimen  to  which  I  doomed  myself  was  the 
swallowing  down  a  cup  of  that  famous  beer  of  Eimbeek, 
which  was  counted  so  orthodox  a  drink  among  the  Ger- 
man Reformers,  and  over  flagons  of  which  most  of  their 
new  plan  of  Christianity  was  settled.  That  the  great 
Luther  himself  was  no  foe  to  this  beverage,f  appears 
from  the  fact,  which  is  on  record,  that  the  good  citizens 
of  Eimbeek  sent  him,  in  token  of  their  admiration,  a  pre- 
sent of  some  of  their  best;  and  "  as  he  could  not  (says  my 
authority)  go  to  Eimbeek  himself,  to  give  the  words  of 
salvation  for  the  liquor  of  earthly  life,  he  is  said  to  have 
despatched  thither  two  of  his  most  faithful  and  thirsty 
disciples."J 

It  must  not  be  thought,  from  the  tone  of  banter  in 
which  I  here  speak  of  the  state  of  my  mind,  on  leaving 
Hamburgh,  that  the  turn  of  my  views  at  that  period,  par- 
took in  any  degree  of  the  same  mocking  character.  We 
are  often  apt,  in  referring  to  scenes  or  feelings  that  are  past, 
to  invest  them  with  a  colouring  not  originally  their  own, 
but  reflected  back  upon  them  from  the  experience  which 

*  Russell's  Germany. 

t  To  this  beer  he  no  doubt  alluded,  m  his  famous  sermon  at  Wit* 
tenburg,  when,  in  impressing  upon  his  hearers  that  it  was  not  by 
force  of  hands  the  reform  of  abuses  could  be  effected,  he  told  them  that 
words  had  hitherto  done  every  thing  for  them : — "  It  was  words  (said 
be)  that,  while  I  myself  lay  quietly  asleep,  or  was  drinking,  perhaps, 
my  beer  with  my  dear  Melancthon  and  Amsdorf, — it  was  words  that 
were,  in  the  meantime,  shaking  the  Papacy  as  no  Prince  or  Emperor 
ever  could  have  done." 

In  this  same  sermon  it  was  that  he  so  far  outraged  all  respect  both 
for  his  cause  and  his  followers  as  to  threaten  that,  if  his  advice  was 
not  followed,  he  would,  without  hesitation,  retract  his  whole  course, 
unsay  every  thing  he  had  written  or  taught,  and  leave  them  to  them- 
selves ; — adding,  in  a  taunting  manner,  "  This  I  tell  you  once  for  all." 
— "  Non  dubitabo  funem  reducere,  et  omnium  quae  aut  scripsi  aut  do- 
cui  palinodiam  canere,  et  a  vobis  desciscere  ;  hoc  vobis  dictum  esto." 
Serrru)  docens  abusus  non  manibus,  S^c. 

%  The  traveller  (Williams)  from  whom  I  have  taken  this  extract, 
after  stating  that  a  barrel  of  this  beer  was,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  a 
present  for  a  Prince,  adds  that  if  it  was  at  all  like  the  specimens  of  it 
which  still  remain,  the  Princes  must  have  had  "  execrable  tastes  and 
strong  stomachs." 


(      190     ) 

we  have  since  acquired.  It  is  true,  with  my  present 
knowledge  of  the  life  and  the  doctrines  of  Luther,  I 
should  find  it  nearly  as  difficult  to  speak  with  seriousness 
of  his  pretended  Reformation  as  it  would  be  to  discuss 
gravely  the  claims  to  apostleship  of  a  Montanus  or  a 
Manes.  But  it  was  under  a  far  different  aspect  I  con- 
sidered the  subject  at  the  time  of  which  I  have  been 
speaking.  My  limited  acquaintance  with  the  details  of 
that  strange  jumble  of  creeds,  out  of  which  the  multifa- 
rious monster,  called  Protestantism,  arose,  left  me,  to  a 
great  extent,  ignorant  of  the  system  of  faith  I  was  about 
to  espouse;  while  the  anxiety  I  felt  to  discover  in  it  such 
points  alone  as  might  in  some  degree  justify  my  intended 
apostacy,  made  me  comparatively  blind  to  all  that  was 
of  an  opposite  description,  and  even  lulled,  for  the  time, 
my  natural  sense  of  the  ridiculous  into  inaction. 

On  arriving  at  Gottingen,  I  lost  not  a  moment  in 
availing  myself  of  a  few  letters  of  introduction,  with 
which  the  private  tutor  of  a  young  friend  of  mine,  who 
had  passed  some  months  at  this  university,  had  furnished 
me.  It  was  through  the  means  of  one  of  these  letters,  I 
became  acquainted  with  the  chief  Professor  of  Theology, 
M.  Scratchenback,  nor  was  it  possible  for  me  to  have 
lighted  upon  an  introduction  more  fortunate  for  the  im- 
mediate object  of  my  visit.  Besides  the  great  and  ac- 
knowledged eminence  of  this  gentleman,  in  the  walk  of 
learning  where  my  inquiries  now  lay,  there  were  also 
circumstances,  at  that  moment,  connected  with  the  actual 
state  of  religion  in  Germany,  which  led  him  to  regard 
with  more  than  ordinary  interest  the  particular  object  I 
had  at  heart  in  applying  to  him.  Neither  to  him,  in- 
deed, nor  to  any  one  else  had  I  made  a  secret  of  my  in- 
tention to  become  a  member  of  the  Protestant  Church,  in 
case,  on  examining  its  doctrines,  I  should  find  them  to  be 
such  as  I  could  conscientiously  approve. 

In  consequence  of  a  long-laid  train  of  causes,  which  I 
shall  attempt  briefly,  in  the  course  of  these  pages,  to 
trace,  there  had  been,  of  late,  numerous  instances  of  de- 
fection to  the  Roman  Catholic  faith,  from  both  the  Lu- 
theran and  the  Reformed  branches  of  the  Protestant 
Church  of  Germany.  These  desertions,  which  seemed  to 
some  persons  to  be  but  the  commencement  of  a  current 
setting  in  towards  Popery,  had  a  good  deal   broker* 


(     191     ) 

that  spell  of  indifferentism  which  had,  for  some  time, 
hung  round  the  theologians  of  the  University.  Fearful 
only  of  excesses  in  belief,  the  faintest  prospect  of  any 
return  to  that  faith  of  which  their  forefathers  had  taken 
such  pains  to  strip  themselves,  even  to  nudity,  struck 
alarm  through  all  their  ranks ;  nor  could  the  example, 
which  it  was  now  expected  I  was  about  to  present,  of  a 
conversion  in  the  opposite  direction,  have  offered  itself  at 
any  apter  or  more  propitious  moment. 

With  the  utmost  promptitude  did  my  new  friend,  the 
Professor,  undertake  to  put  me  fully  in  possession  not 
only  of  the  present  state  and  prospects  of  Protestantism 
in  Germany,  but  also  of  that  purifying  process  by  which, 
as  he  said,  the  whole  system  of  Christianity  had,  in  the 
course  of  the  last  half  century,  been  lightened  of  much 
of  its  ancient  alloy,  so  as  to  assume,  at  last,  that  compara- 
tively pure  and  rational  form,  in  which  it  is  adopted  by 
most  enlightened  German  Protestants  at  the  present 
day. 

As  I  was  well  inclined  to  be  an  humble  and  unreply- 
ing  hearer,  my  course  of  instruction  took  the  shape  rather 
of  lecture  than  conversation ;  and  my  rule  being,  to  note 
down,  after  each  of  our  sittings,  such  portions  of  the 
Professor's  discourse  as  had  remained  in  my  memory,  I 
was  enabled  thus  to  preserve  pretty  accurately  their  sub- 
stance,— allowing,  of  course,  for  such  casual  and,  I  trust, 
slight  errors  as,  from  my  previous  unacquaintance  with 
the  subject,  may  have  stolen  into  my  reports. 


+►►©©©«««♦« 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 


First  Lecture  of  Professor  Scratchenbach. — Heathen  philosophers. — 
Rationalism  among  the  Heretics. — Marcion,  Arius,  Nestorius,  &c. 
all  Rationalists.— -The  Dark  Ages. — Revival  of  Learning.— Luther. 

It  was,  as  I  well  recollect,  on  the  eighteenth  of 
September,  that  my  course  of  Lectures  under  the  learned 
Professor  Scratchenbach  commenced.    As  I  was,  at  the 


(     192     ) 

time,  rather  indisposed,  (no  doubt,  in  consequence  of  th# 
Lutheran  beer  on  which  I  had  ventured)  the  Professor 
offered,  most  condescendingly,  to  lecture  me  at  my  own 
odgings — a  small  apartment  which  I  had,  looking  upon 
the  canal;  where,  on  the  day  above  mentioned,  taking 
his  seat  gravely  opposite  me,  my  instructor  thus  began: — 

"Between  the  Priest  and  the  Philosopher, — or,  in 
other  words,  between  the  assertor  of  the  authority  of 
Faith,  and  the  vindicator  of  the  free  exercise  of  Reason, 
— there  must,  at  all  times,  and  under  all  systems  of  be- 
lief, exist  a  principle  of  variance,  which  can  only  be  pre- 
vented from  coming  to  an  open  and  a  violent  struggle, 
either  by  the  interposition  of  the  strong  arm  of  the  State 
in  favour  of  one  of  the  two  parties,  or  by  some  mutual 
compromise  or  coalition  among  themselves.  For  the  first 
of  these  modes  of  establishing  religious  peace,  the  alliance 
between  Church  and  State  has  been  always  found  the 
most  efficacious  contrivance.  The  plan  of  conniving  at, 
and  compounding  with  established  superstitions  was  the 
policy  adopted  by  the  sages  of  Greece  and  Rome;  and 
the  practicability  of  a  coalition  between  Theology  and 
Philosophy  is  exemplified  in  the  present  state  of  German 
Protestantism. 

"  The  exclusion  of  Reason  from  all  interference  in 
religious  concerns  was  as  strongly  inculcated,  it  must  be 
confessed,  by  the  great  philosophers  of  antiquity  as  it  has 
ever  been,  at  any  period,  even  by  Papists  themselves.  In 
fact,  an  implicit  and  uninquiring  acquiescence  in  the  re- 
ligious rites  handed  down  from  their  forefathers  was  re- 
garded by  them  as  one  of  the  most  exemplary  duties  of 
all  good  citizens.  4  When  religion  is  in  question,'  says 
Cicero,  4I  do  not  consider  what  is  the  doctrine  thereon  of 
Zeno,  Clean  thes,  or  Chrysippus,  but  what  the  Chief  Pontiffs 

Coruncanus,  Scipio,  and  Scasvola  say  of  it From 

you,  wTho  are  a  philosopher,.  I  am  not  unwilling  to  re- 
ceive reasons  for  my  faith ;  but  to  our  ancestors  I  trust 
implicitly,  without  receiving  any  reason  at  alL'* 


*  Cum  de  religione  agitur  T.  Coruncanum,  P.  Scipionem,  P.  Scaevo- 
lam  Pontifices  maximos,  non  Zenonem,  aut  Cleanthem,  aut  Chrysip- 
pum  sequor  .  .  .  .  A  te  philosopho  rationem  aeeipere  debeo  religionis: 
majoribus  autem  nostris,  etiam  nulla  ratione  reddita,  credere.  Cic. 
Lib.  3.  de  Nat.  Deorum. 

Another  heathen  philosopher  thus  speaks,  in  the  same  spirit : "  When 


(     193     ) 

"So  little,  indeed,  of  a  Rationalist,  in  our  German 
sense,  was  Cicero,  that,  though  acknowledging  the  art  of 
augury  to  be  a  fiction  and  cheat,  we  find  him  denouncing, 
as  worthy  of  the  severest  punishments,  all  who  opposed  or 
disturbed  the  popular  belief  in  that  rite.* 

"  In  a  state  of  things  where  a  Cicero  could  speak  thus, 
or,  still  stronger,  where  an  Epicuru3  went,  for  decorum's 
sake,  to  prayers,f  neither  the  Latin  nor  Greek  priests  had 
much  to  dread  from  philosophers;  and,  accordingly,  in 
their  respective  periods,  the  most  irrational  superstition 
continued  to  flourish  under  the  very  shelter  of  the  Gar- 
den and  of  the  Academy.  But,  though  so  tolerant  of  their 
own  established  and  time-hallowed  absurdities,  We  may 
see,  in  the  zeal  with  which  Porphyry,  Celsus,  and  Lu- 
cian,  assailed,  each  in  his  own  fashion,  the  Christian 
faith,  that,  towards  what  they  accounted  a  new  and  in- 
trusive superstition,  these  philosophers  were  by  no  means 
so  tolerantly  disposed ; — being,  in  this,  no  doubt,  of  the 
opinion  of  your  English  divine,  Warburton,  that  'non-* 
sense  for  nonsense,  the  old  should  keep  its  ground,  as 
being  already  in  possession.' 

"  It  was  far  less,  however,  of  the  hostility  of  Philoso- 
phy than  of  her  amity  and  alliance  that  the  Christian 
Church,  at  that  period,  had  any  reason  to  complain; — the 
efforts  made  by  some  of  the  most  learned  of  the  Fathers 
to  graft  the  tenets  of  Paganism  upon  Christianity  having 
more  than  any  thing  else  tended  to  adulterate  the  simple 
truths  of  the  latter,  and  involve  whatever  there  was  of 
mysterious  in  its  doctrines  in  still  more  hopeless  dark- 
ness. 

"  The  only  instances,  indeed,  which  occurred  in  those 
times,  of  free  and  fearless  investigation  into  the  credibility 
and  historical  consistency  of  the  documents  of  Revela- 
tion, are  to  be  found,  as  might  be  expected,  among  the 
Gnostic  writers ;  and  more  especially, — as  far  as  can  be 

all  is  so  uncertain  in  nature,  how  much  better  is  it  and  more  venera- 
ble to  adhere  to  the  faith  of  our  ancestors,  as  to  a  depository  of  truth, 
to  profess  the  religions,  delivered  down  by  tradition,  and  fear  the  Gods 
that  our  fathers  and  mothers  have  taught  us  to  fear."  duanto  venera» 
bilius  ac  melius  antistitem  veritatis  majorum  excipere  disciplinam. 
religiones  traditas  colere,  &c. — Ccecil.  ap.  Minuc.  FeL 

*  Nee  vero  non  omni  supplicio  digni  P.  Clodius  et  L.  Junius,  qui  con* 
tra  auspicia  navigaverunt;  parendum  enim  fuit  religioni,  nee  patrius 
mos  repudiandus. — De,  Div . 

t  Vic  d'Epicure,  by  De  Rondel. 

17 


(      191     ) 

judged  from  the  mere  abstracts  of  their  works  that  re- 
main,— in  the  writings  of  the  Marcionites.  The  sifting 
search  made  by  these  heretics  through  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  for  the  purpose  of  pointing  out  the  numerous 
contradictions  between  them,  affords,  perhaps,  the  first 
signal  example  in  the  annals  of  Christianity,  of  that  sort 
of  reference  to  Reason,  as  the  arbiter  of  Faith,  which 
formed  the  ground-work  both  of  Protestantism,  as  intro- 
duced at  the  Reformation,  and  of  that  more  extended  sys- 
tem called  Rationalism  by  which  it  had  been  superseded, 
How  acutely  Marcion  perceived  the  utter  irreconcilable- 
ness  of  the  history  of  the  Fall  of  Man  with  any  of  those 
attributes  which  true  piety  would  aecord  to  the  Deity, 
appears  from  his  comment  upon  that  event,  that '  God 
must  be  either  deficient  in  goodness  if  he  willed,  in  pre- 
science if  he  did  not  foresee,  or  in  power  if  he  did  not 
prevent  it.' 

"  These  glimpses  of  Rationalism,  however,  mixed  up 
as  they  were  with  the  wild  fancies  and  absurdities  from 
which  no  sect  of  Gnosticism  was  free,  produced  but  little 
enlightening  effect,  even  on  those  from  whom  they  ema- 
nated, while  upen-  the  self-satisfied  orthodox  of  the  day 
they  were,  of  course,  entirely  lost.  Like  all  other  here- 
siarchs,  Marcion  was  followed  for  the  absurd  parts  of  his 
system,  not  for  what  was  sound  in  it,  and  the  former,  with 
the  usual  good  fortune  of  error,  prevailed.  The  Church, 
too,  fast  intrenched  within  her  frontier  of  Unity,  and 
having,  marshalled  on  her  side,  most  of  the  learning  and 
talent  of  Christendom,  might  safely  bid  defiance  even  to 
the  assaults  of  Philosophy  when  approaching  in  the  odious 
shape  and  name  of  Heresy. 

"  Thus  kept  safe  from  all  scrutiny  of  reason,  during  its 
early  and  probationary  period,  Christianity,  when,  at  last, 
adopted  as  the  religion  of  the  Empire,  received  the  addi- 
tional aid  and  sanction  of  the  secular  arm.  At  the  same 
time,  in  acquiring  this  alliance,  it  could  not  but  lose  much 
of  that  internal  union  which  the  pressure  of  persecution, 
from  without,  is  sure  to  impart  to  all  proscribed  religions. 
Hence  Schism, — so  much  more  dangerous  than  Heresy, 
as  deriving  from  kinship  but  the  readier  power  to  wound, 
— began  then  only  to  show  itself,  to  any  formidable 
extent,  when  the  Church,  with  "  Kings  for  her  nursing- 


(     195     ) 

fathers  and  Queens  her  nursing-mothers,'  took  her  place, 
mitred  and  enthroned,  as  the  chosen  Spouse  of  the 
State. 

"  Then  was  it  that,  within  her  own  hosom  those  con- 
troversies sprung  up,  which,  though  relating  to  the  most 
awful  concernments  of  another  world,  were  decided  by- 
debates  and  majorities,  like  the  most  ordinary  state-affairs 
of  this, — the  discussions  of  a  riotous  Council  and  the 
votes  of  a  crowd  of  factious  Bishops,  being  thought  suf- 
ficient to  determine  such  points  as,  whether  the  Trinity- 
was  to  be  abolished  or  retained,  whether  the  Holy  Ghost 
was  a  person  or  an  accident,  &c. — Through  all  these 
struggles,  the  Church,  (owing  chiefly,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, to  the  influence  of  the  Bishops  of  Rome,)  triumphed 
signally  over  its  adversaries;  nor  did  the  efforts  of  the 
schismatics  to  simplify  and  rationalize  the  popular  articles 
of  belief,  in  any  one  instance,  succeed. 

"  In  vain  did  Arius  attempt  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a 
pure  system  of  Monotheism,  by  asserting  Christ  to  have 
been  but  a  creature,  made,  like  other  creatures,  by  the 
one  God  of  all.  It  was  decided  against  him,*  by  a  large 
majority  of  Bishops  (many  of  whom,  we  are  told,  never 
asked  the  meaning  of  the  word  *  Consubstantial,'  till  the 
whole  affair  was  settled)  that  the  Son  was  not  a  creature, 
but  a  Being  consubstantial  and  coeternal  with  the  Father,  f 
The  decision,  thus  adopted,  took  its  station  in  the  code  of 
Christian  orthodoxy,  and  a  ready  answer  was  always  at 
hand  for  all  objections  offered  to  it.  For  instance, — '  if 
the  Father  and  Son,'  said  the  Rationalists,  'are  to  be  con- 
sidered thus  identical,  it  may  be  said,  that  one  of  the 
Trinity  has  been  crucified, — that  one  of  the  Trinity  died.* 
'By no  means,'  answered  the  orthodox,  'though  the  Father 


*  At  the  famous  Council  of  Nice,  assembled  by  Constantine,  in  the 
year  325. 

1 1  have  here  considerably  abridged  the  discourse  of  the  learned  Pro- 
fessor, who,  besides  that  in  the  wantonness  of  his  Rationalism,  he  chose 
to  speak  of  these  ancient  Councils  in  a  tone  of  levity  which  could  not 
be  otherwise  than  offensive  to  most  readers,  branched  out  also  into 
details  of  those  Assemblies  which  could  as  little  fail  to  be  found  use- 
less and  tiresome.  The  authority  cited  by  him  for  what  he  here  relates 
of  the  Bishops  is  the  Church  historion,  Socrates;  who,  it  appears,  adds 
that,  on  coming  to  an  explanation,  after  the  Council  was  over,  such  a 
scene  of  discord  ensued  among  these  unanimous  voters  of  Consubstan- 
tiality  as  the  historian  could  compare  to  nothing  but  a  "  battle  fought 
in  the  dark." 


(     196     ) 

and  Son  are  one  essence,  in  perfect  identity,  yet  could 
the  Son  die,  without  the  Father  also  dying!" 

44  In  vain  did  Nestor ius, — who,  to  avoid  the  blasphemy, 
as  he  deemed  it,  of  calling  Mary  *  the  Mother  of  God,' 
held  that  there  were  two  persons  in  Christ,  the  divine 
and  the  human, — venture  to  assert  the  very  simple  and 
obvious  proposition,  that  \  a  child  of  two  months  old  never 
could  be  a  God.'  Against  him  also  the  usual  summary 
mode  of  decision  was  adopted,*  and  the  union  of  the  two 
natures  in  one  person  thus  inexplicably  explained  : — '  As, 
in  God,  the  Father,  Son  and  Spirit  are  three  persons  and 
but  one  God,  so,  in  Christ,  the  Godhead  is  one  person  and 
the  manhood  another  person,  and  yet  these  are  not  two 
persons,  but  one  person.' 

44  With  equally  ill  success  did  Macedonius,  another  Ra- 
tionalist, endeavour  to  relieve  the  Christian  creed  of  the 
separate  divinity  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  maintaining  that  the 
Scriptures  afforded  no  sufficient  authority  for  such  an 
opinion.  He  was  answered  that  the  want,  as  far  as  it 
exists,  of  express  testimony  to  this  doctrine  arose  from 
the  unwillingness  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  dictated  the 
sacred  writings,  to  dwell  on  the  share  he  himself  had 
taken  in  the  divine  operations  there  recorded.!  A  Coun- 
cil, too,  was,  in  the  usual  way,  convened  upon  the  sub- 
ject; and,  as  the  failure  of  all  such  appeals  to  reason,  on 
one  side,  led  invariably  to  increased  demands  upon  faith 
from  the  other,  this  attack  on  the  personality  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  but  ended,  as  might  have  been  expected,  in  establish- 
ing, among  the  orthodox,  his  consubstantiality  and  divinity. 
A  majority  of  the  Bishops  present  at  that  disorderly 
Council,]: — thirty-six,  if  I  recollect  right,  having  voted  in 
the  minority, — came  to  the  decision  now  incorporated  in 

*  By  a  Council  held  at  Ephesus,  A.  D.  431.— Dr.  Priestley,  whose 
views  of  all  these  great  Trinitarian  Councils  coincided,  of  course,  with 
those  of  our  Protestant  Professor,  after  describing  the  proceedings  of 
the  Council  of  Ephesus,  says,  M  In  this  factious  manner  was  the  great 
doctrine  of  the  hypostatical  union  of  the  two  natures  in  Christ  (which 
has  ever  since  been  the  doctrine  of  what  is  called  the  Catholic  Church) 
established." 

t  Such  is  the  reason  given  by  Epiphanius  for  the  omission  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  Paul,  1  Cor.  8,  6.  M  There  is  but  one  God,  the  Father, 
of  whom  are  all  things,  and  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by  whom  are  all 
things." 

X  A  Council  assembled  by  Theodosius,  at  Constantinople,  in  381—  I 
have  here  also  taken  the  liberty  of  suppressing  a  considerable  portion 
of  the  Professor's  discourse.    Among  his  authorities  for  the  li  disorder- 


(     197     ) 

the  orthodox  creed  that c  the  Holy  Ghost  was  the  Lord 
and  Giver  of  Life,  who  proceeded  from  the  Father,  and 
who  ought  to  be  adored  and  glorified  with  the  Father  and 
the  Son,  and  who  spake  by  the  Prophets.' 

"  It  was  before  long,  however,  discovered  that  the  Holy 
Ghost  proceeded  from  the  Son,  as  well  as  from  the  Father, 
— but  without  prejudice  (said  these  enigmatical  believers) 
either  to  his  own  claim  to  he  considered  as  Father,  or  to 
the  Son's  right  to  be  considered  as  only  Son ;  and  the  fact 
and  manner  of  this  new  line  of  procession  was  thus,  at 
last,  laid  down:  'The  Holy  Spirit  is  eternally  from  the 
Father  and  the  Son,  and  he  proceeds  from  them  both 
eternally,  as  from  a  single  principle  and  by  one  single 
procession." 

"During  the  ages  of  darkness  and  ignorance  that 
followed  the  period  of  which  I  have  been  speaking,  the 
Church  was  fortunate  enough  to  have  the  undisturbed 
possession  of  the  Christian  world  to  herself; — the  few 
pretenders  to  science  who,  from  time  to  time,  usurped  the 
name  of  philosophers,  being  almost  all  of  the  ecclesiastical 
order,  and  therefore  pledged  to  devote  the  whole  stock 
of  their  wretched  quibbling  knowledge  to  the  support  of 
a  superstition  by  which  they  lived  and  prospered,  and  of 
which  such  science  as  theirs  was,  at  once,  the  offspring 
and  nurse.  Little,  therefore,  had  religion  to  dread  from 
the  light  of  reason,  in  those  times,  when  even  Grammar 
was  thought  too  profane  a  restraint  upon  the  words  of 
divine  wisdom,  and  to  be  ignorant  was  accounted  an  es- 
sential qualification  of  all  good  Christians.* 

"  In  the  midst,  however,  of  this  darkness,  there  had  ap- 
peared, now  and  then,  some  crepusculous  gleams,  which 
bespoke  the  approaches,  however  slow,  of  a  more  intellec- 
tual era.  At  last,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  the  night  of 
ages  began  gradually  to  clear  away;  and,  with  the  revival  of 

ly  "  character  of  this  meeting,  is  St.  Gregory  of  Nazianzum,  in  one  of 
whose  Poems  it  is  asserted  that  the  great  object  of  those  assembled  at 
the  Council  was  to  procure  for  themselves  bishoprics.  "  They  fight," 
says  the  Saint,  "  and  run  into  schism,  and  divide  the  whole  world,  for 
the  sake  of  thrones:'  St.  Gregory  also  adds,  that  "  the  Trinity  was  but 
a  mere  pretext  for  their  wrangling,  the  true  cause  being  an  incredible 
spirit  of  hatred." 

*  It  was  a  saying  of  those  times,  "duanto  melior  Grammaticus,  tanto 
pejor  Theologus." 

17* 


(     198     ) 

learning,  there  burst  forth  a  *  morning  of  the  mind,'  a 
spread  of  thought  and  knowledge,  in  whose  light,  it  was 
easy  to  foresee,  Superstition  would  not  very  long  linger. 

"  The  important  change,  indeed,  which  was  soon  mani- 
fested in  the  tone  of  religious  feeling  through  Europe 
showed  sufficiently  how  the  spirit  of  Christianity  may  be 
altered  or  modified  by  the  more  or  less  enlightened  state 
of  the  minds  that  receive  it.  The  hostility  to  the  Roman 
See,  expressed  openly  both  by  Dante  and  Petrarch,  was 
but  a  foretaste  of  what  the  diffusion  of  a  thirst  for  know- 
ledge was  yet  to  produce.  Within  the  very  precincts  of  the 
Church  the  inquiring  spirit  began  disturbingly  to  display 
itself;  and  we  find,  among  other  instances,  a  friar  of  the 
Dominican  order,  Savonarola,  so  far  anticipating  the 
glorious  era  that  was  at  hand  as  to  venture  to  couple  the 
word  '  Reformation  '  with  the  Church,*  and  to  maintain, 
in  opposition  to  the  preachers  of  mystery,  the  reasonable- 
ness of  Christianity. 

"  Notwithstanding,  however,  such  glimpses  of  a  purer 
era  of  theology, — glimpses  rewarded,  as  in  Savonarola's 
case,  with  strangulation  and  burning, — the  anti-papal  ad- 
venturers of  that  period  were,  it  must  be  confessed,  far 
more  of  fanatics  than  of  Reformers ;  nor  was  it  till  the 
ever-memorable  outbreak  of  Luther  himself  that,  for  the 
first  time,  in  the  whole  history  of  creeds,  it  was  laid  down 
as  a  principle,  that  Religion  is  to  be  subjected  to  the  ju- 
risdiction of  Reason,  and  private  judgment  made  the  sole 
test  and  guide  of  Faith.  From  that  moment,  the  triumph 
of  Reason  over  Superstition  was,  however  distant,  secure. 
The  very  introduction  of  such  a  principle,  into  Christian 
theology  at  once  threw  open  the  sanctuary  to  the  search- 
ing eyes  of  philosophy,  and  led,  by  natural  and  inevitable 
steps,  (which  it  shall  be  my  business,  in  future  lectures, 
to  trace,)  to  that  enlightened  and  philosophical  state  of 
religious  belief  which  you  will  find  prevailing  among 
most  educated  German  Protestants  at  the  present  day." 

*  Savonarola  wrote  a  Mtratto  "della  Revelazione  della  Riforraa- 
aione  della  Chjesa" 


(     199     ) 


CHAPTER  XL. 


Reflections  on  the  Professor's  Lecture.— Commence  Second  Lecture. 
Luther.— His  qualifications  for  the  office  of  Reformer. 


It  would  be  difficult  to  describe  the  state  of  astonish- 
ment and,  at  times,  utter  dismay,  into  which, — though 
obliged  from  a  sense  of  good-breeding  to  put  a  restraint 
on  my  feelings, — I  was  thrown  by  the  whole  course  and 
tendency  of  this  most  startling  discourse;  a  discourse  ut- 
tered, be  it  remembered,  by  one  who  was  not  only  a  Pro- 
testant Professor  of  Theology,  but  still  more,  a  Minister, 
as  I  now  for  the  first  time  learned,  of  the  Hanoverian 
Church! 

The  natural  cast  of  my  disposition  was,  as  I  have  be- 
fore stated,  deeply  devotional ;  and  I  had  at  this  time, 
notwithstanding  my  general  love  of  inquiry  on  such  sub- 
jects, formed  but  little  acquaintance  with  the  works  of 
any  infidel  writers; — the  few  occasions  on  which  T  had 
tasted  of  the  cold  springs  of  Scepticism  having  rather  re- 
pelled than  allured  me  to  any  deeper  draught. 

The  irreverence  with  which,  I  knew,  most  Protestants, 
of  all  countries  and  sects,  think  themselves  privileged 
to  speak  of  that  illustrious  array  of  Fathers  and  Councils 
which  arose  in  the  early  times,  as  fortresses,  along  the 
banks  of  Christianity,  during  the  first  progress  of  that 
"river  of  God  "  through  the  world,  sufficiently  accounted 
to  me  for  the  views  taken  by  the  Professor  of  the  inspired 
wisdom  of  those  early  beacons  of  the  truth,  It  was  not 
till  I  found  him  raising  doubts,  and  even  more  than  doubts, 
as  to  the  direct  agency  of  God  in  the  promulgation  of  the 
Gospel,*  and  endeavouring  to  reduce  that  special  mission 

*  The  particular  passage  of  the  Professor's  lecture  here  alluded  to 
occurred  in  that  portion  of  his  discourse  which,  for  reasons  already 
given.  I  omitted.  In  speaking  of  the  dark  ages  he  had  said  ;  "  It  will 
be  difficult  for  those  who  regard  Christianity  as  a  revelation  direct 
from  Heaven  to  explain  why  this  revealed  knowledge  should,  at  the 
time  of  which  we  are  speaking,  have  shared  the  fate  of  all  mundane 
and  ordinary  knowledge,  and  like  philosophy,  poetry,— like  the  whole 


(     200     ) 

of  a  Saviour  to  the  level  of  those  every-day  manifesta- 
tions of  beneficence  which  all  alike  proceed,  though  me- 
diately, from  the  same  divine  hand, — it  was  not  till 
startled  by  his  arrival  at  this  advanced  stage  of  scepticism 
that  I  was,  at  last,  aware  in  what  direction  my  Protes- 
tant guide  was  leading  me,  and  saw  that  already  we  were 
on  the  high  road  to  the  "  waste  wilderness  "  of  unbelief. 

There  was,  however,  but  little  time  allowed  me  for 
rumination  on  what  I  had  heard  before  I  was  again  sum- 
moned to  hear  more,  by  the  indefatigable  Scratchenbach, 
who,  presenting  himself  early  in  my  apartment,  on  the 
following  morning,  and  resuming  his  subject  where  we 
had  broken  off,  proceeded  as  follows : — 

"  In  most  respects,  Luther  may  be  said  to  have  been 
eminently  qualified  for  the  great  task  of  demolition  which 
it  fell  to  his  lot  to  accomplish.  Intrepid,  vain,  self-willed, 
and  vehement, — fearless  of  all  attacks  from  enemies,  and 
elated  easily  by  the  acclamation  of  friends, — with  pas- 
sions ever  prompt  to  suggest  what  was  daring,  and  a  per- 
severance proof  against  all  scruples  in  executing  it, — 
the  very  weaknesses  and  excesses  of  his  character  con- 
tributed fully  as  much  as  its  better  points  to  his  success. 
The  indiscriminate  license  of  personal  abuse  in  which 
he  indulged  gave  a  vigour  to  his  public  displays,  in  the 
eyes  of  the  vulgar,  which  made  all  else  appear  feeble  in 
comparison,  and  against  which  no  man  who  was,  at  all, 
restrained  by  decorum,  could  hope  to  contend  with  any 
success.  In  the  same  manner,  had  his  natural  tempera- 
ment, as  regarded  the  other  sex,  been  aught  but  what  he 

circle,  in  short,  of  human  sciences,— should  have  passed  through  an 
eclipse  as  opaque  and  earthly  as  ever  ignorance  and  superstition  have 
combined  to  cast  over  mankind.  That  a  light,  so  immediately  from 
the  hand  of  God,  should,  within  a  few  centuries  after  its  introduction 
into  the  world,  not  only  fail  in  preventing  the  darkness  that  then  fell 
over  every  other  field  of  knowledge,  but  should  itself  become  as  much 
obscured  by  craft  and  credulity  as  were  even  the  basest  of  those  forma 
of  superstition  that  had  preceded  it,  is  a  supposition  too  monstrous, 
too  derogatory  to  all  our  notions  of  divine  power  to  find  admission 
into  the  belief  of  any  mind  not  wilfully  hood-winked. 

"  A  system  of  faith,  however  moral  and  excellent  in  itself,  which 
follows  so  naturally  the  course  of  human  weakness  and  change ;  which 
in  a  period  of  ignorance,  takes  the  dark  and  gross  colour  of  the  times, 
and  in  an  age  of  increasing  civilization  becomes  proportionally  enlight- 
ened, can  assuredly  lay  no  claim  to  those  marks  of  Divine  workman- 
ship,— that  instant,  and  constant  perfection, — that  grand  sameness  of 
design  and  execution,  which  characterizes  all  that  bears  the  impress  of 
the  immediate  hand  of  God." 


(     201     ) 

himself  so  coarsely  describes  it,*  there  would  have  been 
one  impulse  wanting  of  the  many,  strong  and  ungovern- 
able, which,  in  defiance  of  decency  itself,  urged  him  on 
ill  his  career. 

"No  other  man,  indeed,  of  the  memorable  band  whom 
that  crisis  called  forth,  could  have  accomplished  what 
may  be  called  the  rough  work  of  the  Reformation, — the 
revolutionary  part  of  that  great  change, — with  any  thing 
like  the  same  ability,  perseverance,  or  success.  Me- 
Jancthon  would  have  been  far  too  hesitating  and  consci- 
entious for  the  bold,  Carlostadt  too  much  of  a  leveller 
and  fanatic  for  the  timid,  while  Zwingli  would  have  pur- 
sued a  plan  of  Reform  too  philosophical  and  simplifying 
for  almost  all.  Even  the  reverence  with  which  Luther 
clung  to  many  of  the  errors  of  the  old  faith,  was,  how- 
ever weak,  of  much  service,  in  facilitating  his  general 
object ;  as  the  transition  from  old  doctrines  to  new  was 
thus  made  to  appear  less  violent,  and  while  much  was 
held  forth  for  the  lovers  of  novelty  to  look  forward  to, 
there  was  also  much  retained  on  which  the  reverers  of 
antiquity  could  look  back. 

"  Nor  would  it  be  right,  among  the  various  requisites 
for  such  a  mission  which  he  possessed,  to  omit  adverting 
to  his  private  character,  as  a  convivial  companion,  which, 
among  the  sources  of  his  influence,  was  certainly  not  the 
least  popular.  The  refined,  retiring  habits  of  a  leader 
like  Melancthon  would  have  presented  nothing  broad 
enough  to  the  public  gaze ;  while  of  Calvin,  as  an  here- 
siarch,  the  sour,  arbitrary  sternness  would  have  thrown 
such  an  air  of  rigour  round  the  infant  Reformation  as 
would  not  have  been  likely  to  attract  many  votaries  to 
its  cradle.  The  social  habits,  however,  of  Luther,  his 
jollity,  his  love  of  music,  the  anecdotes  spread  abroad  of 
his  two-pint  cup,f  his  jokes,  his  parodies,  &c. — all  tended 

*  Ut  non  est  in  meis  viribus  situm  ut  vir  non  sim,  tarn  non  est  mei 
juris  ut  absque  muliere  sim. — Colloq.  Mensal. — See  also  his  Sermon  de 
Matrimordo. 

t  The  famous  goblet  which  this  apostle  of  Protestantism  called  his 
"Catechistical  Cup,"  and  boasted  that  he  could  swallow  down  its 
contents  at  a  single  draught.  See  the  Colloq.  Mensal.  If  there  were 
any  need  of  additional  testimony  to  the  authority  of  this  work,  it 
would  be  sufficient  to  say  that  Jortin,  in  his  Life  of  Erasmus,  always 
refers  to  it,  as  authentic. 

Of  the  Reformer's  higher  order  of  parodies  the  reader  will  find  a  spe- 


(     202     ) 

at  once  to  divert  and  interest  the  public,  and  by  lowering1 
him  to  the  level  of  their  own  every-day  lives,  established 
a  companionship,  as  it  were,  between  him  and  his  most 
distant  partisans. 

"  To  this  very  day,  indeed,  his  reputation,  as  a  lover  of 
pleasure  and  good  cheer, — surviving,  strange  to  say,  al- 
most all  his  theological  tenets, — still  continues  to  give  a 
zest  to  some  of  our  most  popular  drinking-songs.  For 
instance ! — 

c  D'rum  stosset  an, 
Und  sing-et  dann, 
Was  Martin  Luther  spricht: 
Chor.    Wer  nicht  liebt  Wein,  Weib  und  Gesang*. 
Der  bleibt  ein  Narr  sein  Lebenlang", 
Und  Narr  en  sind  wir  nicht.'* 


"  Such,  undeniably,  wTas  the  assemblage  of  at  once 
apt  and  powerful  qualifications,  with  which  Luther  came 
furnished  to  that  work  of  assault  and  demolition,  which 
forms  usually  the  first  stage  of  all  radical  Reformations, 
whether  in  faith,  philosophy,  or  politics.  We  have  next 
to  contemplate  his  character  from  a  far  more  lofty  and 
trying  point  of  view,  and  having  accorded  to  him  his  full 
praise,  as  the  assailant  of  an  old  system  of  faith,  consider 
how  far  he  is  entitled  to  the  same  tribute,  as  the  apostle 
and  founder  of  a  new  one : — and  here,  in  my  opinion,  all 
eulogy  of  Luther's  character,  as  a  Reformer,  must  cease. 

"  For  that  great  principle  which  he  was  first  the  means 
of  introducing  into  theology,  namely,  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  a  right  in  every  individual  to  interpret  the  Scrip- 
tures according  to  his  own  judgment,  it  is  impossible  to 
express  too  strongly  the  gratitude  which  all  lovers  of  re- 
ligious liberty  owe  to  him.  For  the  service  rendered  to 
Religion  itself,  by  making  Reason  its  ground-work,  those 
who  seek  the  reasonable  in  all  things,  in  Faith  as  well 
as  in  every  thing  else,  can  never  be  sufficiently  grateful 
to  Luther  and  his  associates.     But  here,  in  the  introduc- 


cimen  in  the  appendix  to  Bower's  Life  of  Luther  ;  his  more  ribald  dis- 
plays in  this  way  are  to  be  found  in  the  Table  Talk,  in  Bayle,  &c. 

*  u  Then  let  us  drink  and  sing  what  Martin  Luther  said— who  does 
not  love  wine,  women,  and  music,  remains  a  fool  all  his  life,  and  we 
are  not  fools." 


(     203 

tion  of  this  great  pregnant  principle, — a  principle,  bear- 
ing within  it  the  germ  of  future  consequences  to  Christi- 
anity which  its  propounders  little  foresaw, — the  whole 
services  of  Luther  to  the  cause  of  Truth  and  Rationalism 
terminate.  His  own  practice,  his  notions  of  tolerance, 
his  temper  of  controversy,  the  whole  tendency,  in  short, 
of  his  creed  and  conduct,  lay  all,  as  we  shall  see,  in  the 
very  opposite  direction. 


"■"*►*►►©  ^5  *4*1,^— 


CHAPTER  XLI. 


Lecture  continued. — Doctrines  of  Luther. — Consubstanti.ition. — Jus- 
tification by  Faith  alone.— Slavery  of  the  Will.— Ubiquity  of  Christ's 
body. 

"  Of  the  policy  of  retaining  a  few  of  the  minor  absur- 
dities of  Popery,*  as  a  means  of  smoothing  away  the  ab- 
ruptness of  so  radical  a  change,  I  have  already  intimated 
my  opinion;  and  had  our  Reformer  confined  himself  to 
this  slight  compromise  with  prejudice,  he  might  have 
been  justified,  thus  far,  on  fair  grounds  of  expediency. 
But  he  has  to  answer  for  a  far  more  gross,  as  well  as  gra- 
tuitous, homage  to  absurdity.  For,  not  only  did  he,  in 
the  free  exercise  of  that  reason  of  which  he  was  so  ve- 
hement an  assertor,  adopt,  to  its  full  extent,  the  old  Po- 
pish belief  of  a  Real  Presence  in  the  Sacrament,  but  also 
in  professing  to  explain  more  orthodoxly  the  modus  of 
that  Presence,  introduced  a  new  and  still  more  monstrous 
enigma  of  his  own,  in  the  place  of  that  mystery  which  he 
had  found,  ready  made  to  his  hand  ;  thus  endeavouring,  by 
the  substitution  of  the  small  word  Con,  to  give  a  new 
form  and  life  to  that  venerable  nonsense  which  had  so 
long  flourished  under  the  auspices  of  the  monosyllable 
Trans. 

*  The  Professor  alludes  to  Luther's  retention  of  the  rite  of  Exorcism 
in  Baptism,  of  Private  Confession  before  admission  to  the  Lord's  ta- 
ble, of  the  use  of  the  Sign  of  the  Cross,  of  the  decoration  of  Churches 
with  images,  and  other  such  observances  of  Popery,  which  were  re- 
tained in  Lutheraiusia. 


(     204     ) 

"  That  he  was  conscientious  in  his  adoption  of  the 
doctrine  of  a  Real  Presence,  the  accounts  left  by  him  of 
his  struggles  upon  this  subject  prove.*  He  was  then  re- 
cent, we  know,  from  the  study  of  the  early  Fathers  of 
the  Church,  and,  accustomed  as  he  had  been  to  consider 
their  authority  as  superseding  even  that  of  the  senses 
themselves,  the  strong  proofs  which  he  could  not  but  find 
in  their  writings  that  they  were  all,  to  a  man,  believers 
in  this  miracle,  were,  to  his  still  subjugated  mind,  suffi- 
cient evidence  of  its  truth. f  Had  he  luckily  remained 
as  ignorant  of  the  Fathers  as  were,  to  the  last,  his  col- 
leagues, ZwingliJ  and  Calvin,  the   world  might  have 

*  The  sincerity  of  Luther's  belief  in  a  Real  Corporal  Presence  is 
marked  strongly  in  his  own  declaration  to  Bucer:  "  Quicquid  dico  in 
hac  summa  Eucharistiae  causa  ex  corde  dico" — "  Whatever  I  say  on 
this  main  point  of  the  Eucharist,  I  say  fronajny  heart."  He  also  de- 
clared that  he  would  much  rather  retain,  with  the  Romanists,  only 
the  body  and  blood  than  adopt,  with  the  Swiss,  the  bread  and  wine, 
without  the  real  body  and  blood  of  Christ.  "  Malle  cutn  Romanis  tan- 
turn  corpus  et  sanguinem  retinere,  quam  cum  Helvetiis  panem  et  vi- 
num  sine  (physico)  corpore  et  sanguine  Christi." 

We  have,  indeed,  from  Luther's  own  pen,  (in  his  "  Sermo,  quod 
verba  stent,")  a  most  able  exposition  as  well  of  the  truth  of  the  an- 
cient doctrine  of  a  Real  Presence,  as  of  the  futility  of  the  objections 
which  his  brother  Reformers  raised  to  it.  Maintaining  that  the  words 
of  our  Saviour  are  to  be  taken  simply  and  literally,  he  points  out,  as 
if  in  anticipation  of  the  fatal  mischiefs  that  have  flowed  from  the 
abuse  of  figurative  interpretation  by  the  Socinians,  the  great  danger 
there  is  in  admitting  this  mode  of  interpreting  Scripture  and  suffering 
the  mysteries  of  our  salvation  to  be  explained  away  by  figure.  The 
same  submission  with  which  we  receive  the  other  mysteries  of  the 
faith  we  should  bring  with  us,  he  maintains,  to  the  reception  of  this, 
not  troubling  ourselves  with  arguments  either  from  reason  or  nature, 
but  confining  our  thoughts  solely  to  Jesus  Christ  and  his  word.  To 
the  objections  raised  as  to  how  a  bo;'^  can  be  in  so  many  places  at 
once, — how  an  entire  human  body  can  lie  in  so  small  a  compass — he 
opposes  the  equally  difficult  questions,  how  does  God  preserve  his 
unity  in  a  Trinity  of  persons?  how  was  he  able  to  clothe  his  Son  with 
human  flesh?  how  did  he  cause  him  to  be  born  of  a  virgin  ? 

The  very  same  was  the  line  of  argument  pursued  by  the  Fathers ; 
and  it  is  with  an  ill  grace  that  believers  in  the  Trinity  can  deny  the 
cogency  of  so  kindred  an  appeal. 

t  Where  the  authority,  however,  of  these  holy  men  clashed  with 
his  own  notions,  as  in  his  favourite  doctrine  of  the  Slavery  of  the 
Human  Will,  he  made  no  scruple  of  casting  it  off.  See  his  answer  to 
Erasmus,  Be  Serv.  Arb.  T.  2. 

\  When  referred  to  the  Fathers  for  evidence  against  some  of  his  he- 
retical opinions,  Zwingli  confessed  that  he  could  not  find  leisure  to 
consult  those  writers ;  and  to  the  famous  "  Mallet  of  Heretics,"  Faber, 
who  pressed  him  hard  with  such  authorities,  he  answered,  "  Atqui  vel 
annum  totum  disputando  consumere  licebit,  priusquam  vel  unicus 
fidei  articulus  conciliari  possit."  In  such  a  hurry  were  these  men  to 
alter  the  whole  system  of  Christianity,  and  so  impatient  were  they  of 
any  reference  to  its  earliest,  and,  therefore,  purest  teachers. 


(     205     ) 

been,  perhaps,  spared  this  mortifying  specimen  of  the 
uses  to  which  so  vigorous  a  proclaiiner  of  the  rights 
of  Reason  could  apply  that  faculty,  when  left  to  its  free 
exercise,  himself. 

"  The  true  secret  of  Luther's  version  of  this  mystery 
seems  to  have  been  that,  failing  in  all  his  efforts  to  dis- 
engage himself  from  so  strongly  attested  a  doctrine  of 
the  primitive  Church,  he  resolved  that,  though  saddled 
with  the  mystery,  he  would  have  the  credit,  at  least,  of 
promulgating  a  new  reading  of  it,  so  as  to  distinguish,  by 
some  variation,  his  dogma  from  that  of  the  Papists,  and 
thus  keep  the  spirit  of  schism  between  their  religions 
alive. 

"  Accordingly,  unsanctioned,  as  he  must  have  well 
known,  by  the  Fathers,  who,  whenever  they  venture  to 
speak  clearly  on  the  subject,  always  imply  that  the  ori- 
ginal substance  of  the  elements  is  exchanged  for  that  of 
the  body  of  Christ,  he  had  the  face  to  intrude  upon  his 
Church  that  hybrid  progeny  of  his  own  brain,  half  Po- 
pish, half  Lutheran,  to  which  he  gave  the  name  of  Con- 
substantiation — a  doctrine  invented,  it  is  plain,  not  so 
much  to  be  believed  as  to  be  wrangled  about,  and  which, 
having  abundantly,  for  a  season,  served  that  purpose,  has 
now  passed  into  oblivion,  leaving  the  Mystery,  which  it 
was  intended  to  supplant,  still  in  possession  of  the  field.* 

"  However  fitted,  indeed,  by  the  peculiar  character  of 
his  intellect  and  temperament  for  the  office  of  sweeping 


*  It  is  a  signal  tribute  to  the  truth  of  the  Catholic  doctrine  respect- 
ing the  Eucharist,  that  the  three  classes  of  Reformers,  who,  in  dis- 
senting from  it,  differed  among  themselves,  should,  in  every  objection 
and  argument  which  they  brought  against  each  other,  furnish  a  wea- 
pon against  them  all  to  the  hands  of  the  Catholics.  Thus  Luther  was 
accused  by  Calvin  of  doing  violence  to  the  words  of  our  Saviour,  who 
did  not  say  "  My  Body  is  in,  or  with  this,"  but  "  This  is  my  Body ;" 
you  must,  therefore,  said  Calvin,  either  admit  with  me,  no  Real  Pre- 
sence, at  all,  or  else  admit,  with  the  Papists,  the  mystery  of  Transub- 
stantiation.  On  the  other  hand,  Calvin  and  Zwingli  were  with  equal 
truth  accused  by  the  Lutherans  of  putting  a  forced  construction  on 
the  words  of  our  Saviour,  who  did  not  say,  "  This  is  the  figure,  or 
sign  of  my  Body,"  but  "  This  is  my  Body;"  while  Zwingli,  in  return, 
rated  the  Lutherans  on  their  imprudence,  in  allowing  that  the  word 
"is"  retains  its  natural  signification;  because,  if  it  does  (argued 
Zwingli)  the  followers  of  the  Pope  are  in  the  right,  and  the  belief 
that  the  bread  is  converted  into  flesh  must  then  follow,  as  a  matter  of 
course.  "  Fieri  nequit  quin  panis  substantia  in  ipsam  carnis  sub- 
stantiam  convertatur."  De  Ctena.— See  also  his  answer  to  Billi- 
canus. 

18 


(     206     ) 

away,  without  mercy,  established  errors  and  prejudices', 
there  cannot  be  a  clearer  proof  of  Luther's  inadequacy  to 
the  task  of  founding  an  original  system  of  his  own,  than 
the  fact  that,  of  all  those  points  of  doctrine  which  he  him* 
self,  in  his  capacity  of  Reformer,  introduced,  not  a  single 
one  has  survived  to  this  day  among  those  Protestants 
whose  Church  bears  his  name.  And  in  this  respect,  as 
in  most  others,  he  but  shared  the  fate  of  all  those  earlier 
heresiarchs  whese  respective  systems,  from  the  want  of 
that  upholding  authority  which  the  Church  of  Rome  alone 
has  ever  been  able  to  afford  to  doctrine,  survived  but  a 
short  time  themselves,  leaving  little  more  than  the  name 
of  each  founder  to  his  followers. 

"The  very  doctrine,  indeed, — that  of  Justification  by 
Faith  alone,  without  Works, — which  Luther  propounded 
as  the  foundation  of  his  religious  Reform,  (and  in  which 
he  but  revived,  by  the  way,  an  old,  exploded  imagination 
of  the  Gnostics,)  was  brought  into  disrepute,  even  in  his 
own  life-time,  by  the  dangerous  consequences  which  his 
disciples  deduced  from  it;*  and  in  opposing,  as  he  was 
sometimes  forced  to  do,  its  most  obvious  results,  he  was 
but  passing  sentence  of  condemnation  on  his  own  boasted 
principle.  Having  himself,  for  instance,  gone  so  far  as 
to  assert  the  extravagant  paradox,  that  the  works  of  men, 
1  though  they  might  be  good  in  appearance,  and  even 
probably  good,  were  still  mortal  sins,'f  his  favourite, 
Amsdorf,!  thought  himself  warranted  in  advancing  a  step 
farther,  and  maintaining  that  '  Good  Works  were  even 
an  obstacle  to  salvation  ;'§  while  another  of  his  disciples, 

*  The  immediate  practical  consequences  of  this  doctrine  are  thug 
described  by  one  of  Luther's  own  disciples,  Martin  Bucer:— "The 
greater  part  of  the  people  seem  only  to  have  embraced  the  Gospel,  in 
order  to  shake  off  the  yoke  of  discipline,  and  the  obligation  of  fasting, 
penance,  &c,  which  lay  upon  them  in  the  time  of  Popery,  and  to  live 
at  their  pleasure,  enjoying  their  lust  and  lawless  appetite  without 
control.  They,  therefore,  lend  a  willing  ear  to  the  doctrine  that  we 
are  justified  by  faith  alone,  and  not  by  good  works,  having  no  relish 
for  them." — Be  Regn.  Christ. 

t  Prop.  Heidls.  Jin.  1518. 

t  Though  himself  but  a  priest,  Luther  took  upon  him,  in  the  un- 
bridled license  of  his  self-will,  to  make  this  Amsdorf  a  bishop. 

§  The  question  "  whether  good  works  were  necessary  to  salvation  " 
became,  after  Luther's  death,  one  of  those  subjects  of  controversy 
which  were  agitated  so  fiercely  and  intolerantly  among  his  followers. 
For  simply  maintaining,  indeed,  the  affirmative  in  this  dispute,  the 
Lutheran  Horneius  was  denounced  as  Papist,  Majorist,  Anabaptist, 


(     207     ) 

Agrippa,  renounced  the  obligations  of  the  Law  altogether, 
and  considered  the  enjoinment  of  Good  Works  as  a  Jew- 
ish, not  Christian,  ordinance. 

"  This  doctrine,  I  need  hardly  remind  you,  was  revived 
in  England  *  by  some  fanatics  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
and  to  this  day,  as  I  understand,  boasts  a  number  of  par- 
tisans in  that  country  ;f  so  that,  in  fact,  in  the  dangerous 
extravagances  of  Antinomianism  and  Solifidianism,  we 
must  now  look  for  the  only  vestiges  of  that  vaunted  dog- 
ma which  formed  the  ground-work  of  the  Saxon  Re- 
former's religious  edifice.;); 

"  I  must  not  omit  here,  in  reference  to  this  doctrine,  to 
notice, — as  proving  how  unfit  Luther  was  to  be  a  teacher 
either  of  morals  or  religion, — his  audacious  interpolation 
of  the  word  *  alone '  in  a  verse  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Romans 
(iii.  28)  for  the  purpose  of  gaining,  by  this  fraud,  some 


&c.  and  severely  condemned  by  the  three  universities  of  Wittenberg, 
Jena,  and  Leipzig. 

*  As  a  fair  specimen  of  the  opinions  of  these  English  Antinomians, 
I  need  but  quote  the  words  of  their  great  champion,  Dr.  Tobias  Crisp, 
who  died  in  the  year  1642: — "  Let  me  speak  freely  to  you  and  tell  you, 
that  the  Lord  hath  no  more  to  lay  to  the  charge  of  an  Elect  person,  yet  in, 
the  height  of  his  iniquity,  and  in  the  excess  of  riot,  and  committing  all  the 
abominations  that  can  be  committed, — I  say,  even  then,  when  an  Elect 
person  runs  such  a  course,  the  Lord  hath  no  more  to  lay  to  that  per- 
son's charge  than  God  hath  to  lay  to  the  charge  of  a  believer ;  nay, 
God  hath  more  to  lay  to  the  charge  of  such  a  person  than  he  hath  to  lay  to 
the  charge  of  a  Saint  triumphant  in  glory  T 

t  Most  of  the  English  fanatical  sects  have,  at  some  time  or  other 
of  their  career,  taken  up  this  doctrine  of  Luther.  Thus  it  was  a  fa- 
vourite tenet  of  Whitefield,  "  that  we  are  merely  justified  by  an  Act  of 
Faith,  without  any  regard  to  Works,  past,  present,  or  to  come."  The 
lengths  to  which  the  Wesleyan  Methodists  carried  the  same  conveni- 
ent doctrine  appears  from  the  account  which  Wesley's  able  disciple, 
Fletcher,  gives  of  them  : — "  I  have  heard  them  (he  says)  cry  out  against 
the  legality  of  their  wicked  hearts,  which  they  said  still  suggested  that 
they  were  to  do  something  for  their  salvation.''''  The  same  writer  re- 
presents some  of  these  fanatics  as  holding  that  "  even  adultery  and 
murder  do  not  hurt  the  pleasant  children,  but  rather  work  for  their 
good.  God  sees  no  sin  in  believers,  whatever  sin  they  may  commit. 
My  sins  might  displease  God,  my  person  is  always  acceptable  to  him, 
Though  I  should  out-sin  Manasses,  I  should  not  be  less  a  pleasant 
child,  because  God  always  views  me  in  Christ." — Fletcher's  Checks  to 
Antinomianism. 

X  The  sect  of  Lutherans  that  seem  to  have  followed  up  most  con- 
sistently their  leader's  doctrine,  on  this  head,  were  the  original  Hern- 
hutters,  or  Moravians,  whose  founder,  Count  Zinzendorf,  maintained, 
among  his  Maxims,  that  "nothing  is  required  to  Salvation  and  to 
becoming  our  Saviour's  favourite  soul  for  ever,  but  to  believe  that 
another  has  paid  for  us,  has  toiled,  sweated  and  been  racked  for  us." 
Maxims  of  Count  Zinzendorf— &  work  revised  and  corrected  by  the 
Count  himself. 


(      208      ) 

sanction  for  his  own  doctrine  of  Justification  by  making 
the  Apostle  assert  that  '  man  is  justified  by  faith  aloneS* 
"  Another  article  of  his  Reformed  creed  on  which  Lu- 
ther prided  himself  no  less  ostentatiously,  (though  this, 
also,  he  derived  from  that  fountain-head  of  most  of  his 
tenets,  Gnosticism)  was  the  absolute  slavery  and  nullity 
of  the  human  will; — a  doctrine,  in  his  eyes,  so  founded 
on  Christian  truth,  that  he  professed  his  readiness  to  de- 
fend it  '  against  all  the  Churches  and  all  the  Fathers.' 
Notwithstanding  this  vaunt,  however,  and  the  audacious 
lengths  to  which  he  dared  to  carry  his  paradox, — even  to 
the  blasphemy  of  making  the  Deity  the  author  of  man's 
sin.f — he  was  forced,  on  this  point,  also,  to  yield  to  the 
saner  suggestions  of  others ;  and  consented,  in  the  framing 
of  the  Confession  of  Augsburg,  to  the  introduction  of  an 
article,  in  which  the  Liberty  of  the  Human  Will  is  ad- 


*  He  was  detected,  by  Staphylus,  Emser,  and  others,  in  still  farther 
frauds  on  the  text  of  the  New  Testament,  and  for  the  same  party  pur- 
pose. Thus,  in  the  6th  verse  of  the  Epistle  of  St.  Paul  to  Philemon, 
he  omitted  the  word  "  work"  after  theepithet  "good,"  notwithstand- 
ing that  this  word  was,  as  these  critics  assert,  in  the  famous  Complu- 
tensian  edition  as  well  as  in  the  old  editions,  in  Latin,  of  Robert 
Stephen. 

t  In  his  wrork  Be  Servo  Arhitrio,  Luther  declares  expressly  that 
41  God  works  the  evil  in  us  as  well  as  the  good ;  that  the  perfection  of 
faith  is  to  believe  that  God  is  just,  though  by  his  own  will  he  renders 
us  necessarily  worthy  of  damnation,  so  as  to  seem  to  take  pleasure  in 
ihe  torments  of  the  miserable." 

We  have  already  shown  in  the  preceding  volume  how  large  a  por- 
tion of  Protestantism  has  been  borrowed  from  the  monstrous  schools 
of  Simon  Magus  and  the  Gnostics  ;  and  from  the  same  respectable 
source  is  derived  also  this  doctrine— common  alike  to  Luther  and  Cal- 
vin,— which  supposes  God  to  be  the  deliberate  author  of  man's  sin  and 
ruin.  "  It  was  the  belief  of  Simon  Magus,  (said  Vincent  of  Lprins.) 
that  God  was  the  cause  of  all  sin  and  wickedness,  as  having  himself, 
with  his  own  hands,  created  man  of  such  a  nature,  as,  by  its  own 
proper  movement  and  the  impulse  of  a  necessary  will,  is  neither  able 
nor  willing  to  do  any  thing  but  sin."  Conna.  c.  34.  Compare  with 
this  opinion  the  foregoing  of  Luther  and  the  following  of  Calvin  : — 
"  Though  Adam  has  destroyed  himself  and  his  posterity,  yet  ice  must 
attribute  the  corruption  and  the  guilt  to  the  secret  judgment  of  God.'" 
(Calvin.  Respons.  ad  Calumn.  Xebal.  ad  Art.  1.)  Take  also  another 
specimen  from  a  Calvinist  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Szydlovius  :  "  I 
myself  acknowledge  that,  according  to  the  common  custom  of  think- 
ing, it  seems  too  crude  to  say,  '  God  can  command  perjury,  blasphemy, 
lies,  Sec' — andean  also  command  that  '  he  shall  not  himself  be  wor- 
shipped, loved,  honoured,  &C.'—  Yet  all  this  is  most  true  in  itself." — 
Vindicice  Qucest.  aliquot,  &x.  One  of  the  Dort  divines,  Maccovius,  (Pro- 
fessor of  Theology  at  Franeker,)  maintained,  in  still  more  express 
terms,  that  "  God  does  by  no  means  will  the  salvation  of  all  men,  that 
2ie  does  will  sin,  snd  that  he  destines  men  to  sin,  as  sin." 


(     209     ) 

mitted  to  such  an  extent  as  by  some  has  been  even  thought 
to  border  closely  on  Semi-Pelagianism. 

"  In  this  doctrine,  respecting  the  Will, — as  in  every 
other,  indeed,  which  he  himself  originated, — the  nominal 
followers  of  Luther  took  a  course  entirely  different  from 
that  of  their  master;  insomuch  that,  in  the  time  of  Bayle, 
as  we  are  informed  by  that  writer,  the  Lutherans  had 
been  for  a  long  period  on  the  verge  of  Molinism.  Bayle 
adds,  too,  in  a  spirit  of  prophecy,  the  following  remarka- 
ble words : — 'If  the  Lutherans  go  on  in  future  thus  depart- 
ing from  the  dogmas  of  their  ancestors,*  there  will  come 
a  time  when  they  will  in  vain  look  for  their  doctrines  in 
the  Confession  of  Augsburg;  and  they  will  then,  perhaps, 
do  as  the  monks  have  done  by  the  rule  of  their  Patriarchs, 
that  is  to  say,  place  all  matters  again  upon  their  former 
footing.^ 

"  It  must  be  acknowledged  that  the  present  state  of 
Protestantism  in  Germany,  combined  with  those  deser- 
tions to  the  Catholic  Church  which  are  daily  taking 
place,  confirm  but  too  strongly  the  acuteness  of  this 
shrewd  philosopher's  foresight. 

"  Nearly  the  same  destiny  as  awaited  the  other  doc- 
trines of  Luther  attended  also  his  strange  notion  concern- 
ing the  Ubiquity  of  Christ's  body.  Taking  for  granted, 
that,  as  the  divine  nature  of  Christ  is  omnipresent,  so 
must  also  be  that  human  nature  which  is  hypostatically 
united  with  it,  he  drew  from  hence  the  monstrous  con- 
clusion that  Christ's  body  is  every  where ;  attempting 
thereby  to  account  for  its  real  presence  in  the  Eucharist, 
in  answer  to  Zwingli,  who  contended  that  not  even  God 
himself  could  cause  the  body  of  Christ  to  be  in  more  than 
one  place  at  a  time. 

"  But  from  this  wild  doctrine,  also,  the  Reformer  found 
himself  dislodged  by  those  consequences  which  the  in- 
quiring spirit  he  had  himself  awakened  deduced  from  it. 
■  If  the  body  of  Christ  is  every  where,'  said  Brentius,  *  it 

*  Not  only  did  they  desert  their  Founder's  doctrine  on  this  point, 
but  al-o  carried  with  them  into  their  later  extreme  of  opinion  the  same 
spirit  of  intolerance  which  they  had  manifested  in  the  former.  "  Since 
then,'1  says  Gilhert,  "  the  Lutherans  have  gone  into  the  Semi-Pelagian 
opinion  so  entirely  and  so  eagerly  that  they  will  neither  tolerate  nor 
hold  communion  with  any  of  the  other  persuasions."  Exposition  of 
the  Thirty-nine  Articles. 

t  Nouvclles  Lcttres  Critiques  sur  VHistoire  du  Calvinisme. 

18* 


(     210     ) 

is,  then,  of  coarse,  present  in  a  glass  of  beer,  in  a  sack  of 
corn,  in  the  rope  with  which  the  criminal  is  hanged  •' 
Whether  we  look  to  the  doctrine  itself  or  to  the  conse- 
quences drawn  from  it,  we  must  own  that  the  master  and 
his  disciples  were  well  worthy  of  each  other. 

"  Such,  briefly,  is  the  history  of  those  misbegotten  and 
short-lived  dogmas  which  this  Reformer  had  the  audacity 
to  present  to  the  world  as  the  legitimate  offspring  of  Re 
ligion  by  her  new  consort,  Reason; — so  little  had  his 
mind  of  that  power,  which  only  great  minds  possess,  of 
setting  the  seal  of  durability  on  its  conceptions,  and 
striking  out  truths  that  will  last; — though  gifted  amply 
with  the  coarse  vigour  that  can  assail  and  demolish,  so 
utterly  wanting  was  he  in  that  prospective  spirit  of  Re- 
form, which  alters  but  to  improve,  and  remoulds  but  to 
regenerate;  which  can  look  beyond  the  mere  dazzle  of 
the  moment's  change,  and  while  it  clears  away  the 
clouds  of  the  past,  can  also  send  a  steady  light  into  the 
future ! 

**  Hence  was  it,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  that  of  all 
those  doctrines  which  belonged  peculiarly  to  himself— 
all,  in  short,  of  his  system  that  was  not  Popery  at  second 
hand — the  greater  portion  found  its  Euthanasia  in  his 
own  life-time,  while  of  the  remainder,  all  that  at  present 
survives  is  either  the  mere  shadow,  as  in  the  Church  of 
England  Articles  and  Homilies,  or  the  mere  abuse,  as  in 
the  tenets  of  the  Antinomians  and  Solifidians. 


— — *t,fV0  ^^  ©^*'*'" 


CHAPTER  XLII. 


Lecture  continued.— Doctrines  of  Calvin  and  Zwingli  compared  with 
those  of  Luther.— Luther's  intolerance— how  far  entitled  to  be  called 
a  Rationalist.— Summary  of  his  character,  as  a  Reformer. 

"  Tried  by  the  test  which  I  have  applied  to  Luther, — 
the  durability  of  their  respective  systems, — both  Zwingli 
and  Calvin  must  stand,  as  Reformers,  very  far  above  their 
Chief;  most  of  the  doctrines  of  the  father  of  Calvinism 
being  still  held  by  his  followers,  in  nearly  the  same  form 


(     211     ) 

in  which  they  were  promulgated  and  consistently  en- 
forced by  himself;  while  the  rational  view  taken  by  Zwin- 
gli of  the  Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper, — as  being  a 
mere  commemoration  of  the  death  of  Christ,  under  the 
symbols  of  bread  and  wine, — has  become  the  standard  be- 
lief of  mast  Protestant  Churches.*     Even  the  simple  and 
unmysterious  form  to  which  Zwingli  reduced  the  rite  of 
Baptism,  divesting  it  of  all  that  miraculous  efficacy  which 
superstition  had  attributed  to  it,  has  not  only  been  adopt- 
ed into  the  creed  of  the  Socinians,  Unitarians,  &c„,  but, 
with  the  same  good  fortune  that  attended  his  philosophic 
view  of  the  Eucharist,  has  received  the  sanction  of  some 
.of  the  most  distinguished  among  your  English  divines.f 
JSo  different  has  been  the  fate  of  the  doctrines  of  Zwingli, 
and  even  of  Calvin,  from  that  which  has  justly  befallen 
the  crude,  ill-considered,  and  abortive  dogmas  of  Luther. 
"  While,  on  his  own  part,  too,  this  clumsy  and  precipi- 
tate reformer  contributed  so  little,  in  the  way  either  or 
strength  or  ornament,  towards  the  structure  of  the  new 
faith,  his  intolerance  led  him  to  oppose  violently  every 
effort  in  the  work  of  improvement  by  others;  and  it  was 
soon  seen  that  this  loud  champion  of  the  right  of  private 
judgment  would,  if  he  had  his  own  will,  restrict  the  ex- 

*  "Zwingli's  views  on  the  subject  of  the  Sacrament,"  says  Bower., 
"have  been  adopted  not  only  by  the  British  Churches,  but  by  many 
on  the  Continent." — Life  of  Lather.  Appendix. 

|  Though  the  Zwinglian,  or,  as  it  has  an  equal  right  to  be  called, 
Socinian  view  of  the  Sacrament,  had  found  its  way  into  the  English 
Church  long  before  the  time  of  Hoadly  and  Balguy,  it  was  by  these 
two  divines  that  so  bold  and  heterodox  an  innovation  upon  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Church  of  England,  as  declared  in  her  Catechism  and  Ar- 
ticles, was  first  openly  promulgated.  "  The  rite  of  Baptism,"  says  Dr. 
Balguy,  "  is  no  more  than  a  representation  of  our  entrance  into  the 
Church  of  Christ."  {Charge,  on  the  Sacraments.)  He  explains  this  far- 
ther by  saying,  that  "  the  sign  of  a  Sacrament  is  declaratory  only,  not 
efficient;''''  thus  doing  away  that  effectual  and  invisibly  working  grace, 
which,  according  to  the  Articles  and  the  Catechism,  is  given  by  means 
of  the  Sacraments.  In  the  same  Socinian  spirit,  this  Protestant  di- 
vine tells  us,  that  "  the  benefits  of  the  Lord's  Supper  are  not  present, 
but  future.  The  Sacrament  is  no  more  than  a  sign  or  pledge  to  assure 
us  thereof." 

Equally  devoid  of  all  efficacy  and  mystery  was  the  Lord's  Supper  in 
the  eyes  of  Bishop  Hoadley,  who  agreed,  with  Zwingli  and  Socinus,  in  ' 
considering  it  as  nothing  more  than  a  mere  commemorative  rite ;  or,  as 
his  able  Protestant  opponent,  the  Rev.  W.Law,  not  unfairly  describes 
his  doctrine : — "  Thus  has  this  author  stripped  the  Institution  of  every 
mystery  of  our  salvation  which  the  words  of  Christ  showed  to  be  in  it, 
and  which  every  Christian  that  has  any  true  faith,  though  but  as  a 
grain  of  mustard  seed,  is  sure  of  finding  in  it." 


(     212     ) 

ercise  of  that  right  solely  to  himself.*  His  coarse  and 
bitter  enmity  to  Carlostadt  and  Zwingli  for  no  other  rea- 
son than  that  they  followed  their  own  views  of  doctrine, 
not  his,  showed  how  widely  different  was  his  theory  of 
toleration  from  his  practice.  '  They  are,'  said  he,  speak- 
ing of  the  Zwinglians,  'men  damned  themselves  and 
drawing  others  into  hell;  nor  can  the  Churches  have  any 
farther  communion  with  them,  or  allow  of  their  blasphe- 
mies.'! In  another  place,  too,  he  says  of  these  brother  re- 
formers of  his, — '  Satan  reigns  so  among  them,  that  it  is 
no  longer  in  their  power  to  speak  any  thing  but  lies.'J 

"  With  an  assumption,  too,  of  infallibility,  preposterous 
from  such  a  quarter,  he  denounced  the  most  trifling  de- 
viation, either  on  the  one  side  or  the  other  of  that  pre- 
cise line  of  opinion  which  he  had  thought  proper  to  dic- 
tate, as  a  transgression,  not  only  against  himself,  but 
against  God.  The  defeat  of  the  Zwinglians,  at  Cappel, 
as  well  as  the  death  of  their  able  Pastor,  he  pronounced 
a  judgment  on  them  all  for  differing  from  his  version  of 
the  Eucharist.  In  the  same  bigoted  spirit  was  it  that  he 
refused  to  comprehend  in  the  confederacy  of  Smalcald 
either  the  Zwinglians  or  those  German  states  and  cities 
which  had  adopted  the  opinions  and  confessions  of  Bucer. 

"  The  same  impatience,  indeed,  of  all  control  which  he 
evinced  so  usefully  throughout  his  struggle  with  the  Pope 
still  continued  to  render  him  impracticable  in  the  hands 

*  The  author  of  the  History  of  Leo  the  Tenth  notices  with  just  re- 
probation "  the  severity  with  which  Luther  treated  those  who  unfor- 
tunately happened  to  believe  too  much  on  the  one  hand,  or  too  little 
on  the  other,  and  could  not  walk  steadily  on  the  hair-breadth  line 
which  he  had  presented."  The  same  writer  remarks, — "  Whilst  Lu- 
ther was  engaged  in  his  opposition  to  the  Church  of  Rome,  he  assert- 
ed the  right  of  private  judgment  with  the  confidence  and  courage  of  a 
martyr.  But  no  sooner  had  he  freed  his  followers  from  the  chains  of 
Papal  domination  than  he  forged  others  in  many  respects  equally  in- 
tolerable, and  it  was  the  employment  of  his  latter  years  to  counter- 
act the  beneficial  effects  produced  by  his  former  labours." 

This  part  of  Luther's  character,  indeed,  has  long  been  given  up  by 
all  candid  Protestants.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Sturges,  in  his  "  Reflections  on 
Popery,"  allows  that  Luther  was,  "  in  his  manners  and  writings, 
eoarse,  presuming,  and  impetuous;"  and  a  far  higher  authority,  Bishop 
Warburton,  says,  in  speaking  of  Erasmus,  that  the  other  Reformers, 
such  as  Luther,  Calvin,  and  their  followers,  understood  so  little  in 
what  true  Christianity  consisted,  that  they  carried  with  them  into 
the  Reformed  Churches  that  "  very  spirit  of  persecution  which  had 
driven  them  from  the  Church  of  Rome."—- Notes  on  Pope's  Essay  on  Cri- 
tieism. 

\  Ap.  Hospin.  \  Epist.  ad  Jac.  Prep.  Bremcns.  ap.  Hospin. 


(     213     ) 

of  his  brother  Reformers;  and  this  self-willed  and  selfish 
principle  he  allowed  to  influence  him  in  the  most  import- 
ant concerns.  *  I  abolished,'  said  he,  '  the  elevation  of  the 
Host  to  brave  the  Pope,  and  I  had  retained  it  so  long  to 
spite  Carlostadt.'*  In  a  similar  strain  of  dogged  defiance, 
combined,  too,  with  the  most  unprincipled  indifference  as 
to  the  error  or  truth  of  the  hasty  notions  he  took  up,  we 
find  him  declaring  that,  if  a  Council  were  to  order  the 
Communion  to  be  taken  in  both  kinds,  he  and  his  would 
only  take  it  in  one,  or  none ;  and  would,  moreover,  curse 
all  those  who  should,  in  conformity  with  this  decree  of 
the  Council,  communicate  in  both  kinds.'f 

"How  completely  he  held  in  subjection  the  wise,  but 
too  gentle  Melancthon, — even  to  the  endurance  from  him 
of  blows,  as  Melancthon  himself  confesses,! — would  be 
sufficiently  apparent,  did  there  exist  no  other  testimony 
of  the  fact,  from  the  prominent  station  and  authority 
which  immediately  on  Luther's  death,  his  former  slave 
began  to  assume  in  all  the  counsels  of  the  party.  But 
it  was  then  too  late  for  the  mild  spirit  of  Melancthon  to 
have  any  influence.  The  intolerant  character  of  the 
Founder  had  sunk  deeply  and  indelibly  into  his  Church ; 
and,  as  he  himself  had  been  accustomed  jocularly  to  boast 
that  he  was  a  second  Pope,§  so  the  followers  of  his  creed 
but  exchanged  the  infallibility  of  Bulls  and  Councils  for 
the  upstart  pretensions  to  the  same  authority  assumed  by 
Confessions  and  other  Symbolic  Formularies. 

"Hence,  though  Lutheranism  has  now, — thanks  to  the 
enlightening  progress  of  Reason, — become,  like  most 
other  such  distinctions  between  Protestants,  a  mere  name, 
its  course,  for  nearly  two  centuries  after  the  death  of 
its  founder,  wTas  marked  by  a  bitterness  of  polemic  spirit, 
a  cold  pedantry  of  doctrine  combined  with  a  hot-headed 
intolerance  in  practice,||  such  as  never  before  conspired 

*  Confess   Parv. 

t  Form.  Miss. 

X  Ah  ipso  colaphos  acceperim. — Ep.  ad  Theodorum.  The  wretched 
life  which  hie  tyrant  led  him  is  described  touchingly  in  some  of  Me- 
lancthon's  confidential  letters.  "  I  am  in  a  state  of  servitude  (he  says 
to  his  friend  Camerarins)  as  if  I  were  in  the  Cave  of  the  Cyclops;  and 
often  do  I  think  of  making  my  escape." 

§  When  Luther,  in  going  to  visit  the  Pope's  Nuncio,  in  1535,  stepped 
into  the  carriage  with  Pomeranus,  who  was  to  introduce  him,  he  said, 
laughingly,  "  Here  sit  the  Pope  of  Germany  and  Cardinal  Pomeranus." 

Ii  This  intolerance  of  the  Lutherans  has  been  noticed,  even  to  a  late 


(    M4    ) 

to  render  religion  imamiable,  since  human  systems  of 
faith  were  first  known  in  this  world. 

"  In  what  respects  beside  his  one,  great,  and  signal 
achievement  in  substituting  the  tribunal  of  Private  Judg- 
ment for  the  authority  of  the  Church,  this  Reformer  has 
been  deemed,  by  Wegschneider,  to  deserve  the  title  of 
Rationalist,  I  am  wholly  at  a  loss  to  discover.*  Besides 
the  instances  which  I  have  brought  forward,  from  his  doc- 
trines,  displaying  an  extent  of  irrationalism  which  goes 
beyond  even  the  privilege  of  such  sectarian  absurdities, 
his  favourite  thesis,  on  which  even  the  Doctors  of  the 
Sorbonne  were  opposed  to  him,  that  *  there  are  things  false 
in  Philosophy  which  are  true  in  Theology '  may  be  said 
to  contain  within  itself  the  very  essence  of  the  Anti-ra- 
tional principle ;  and,  accordingly,  on  the  first  rise  of  the 
party  called  Rationaux,  we  find  them  frequently  contest- 
ing this  thesis  with  the  orthodox.f 

"  Tt  is  true,  that  Luther  first  set  the  example, — though 
certainly  not  with  any  clear  foresight  of  the  consequences, 
of  that  unceremonious  method  of  dealing  with  the  re- 
ceived Canon  of  Scripture,  which  has  in  later  times  been 
adopted,  and  with  such  searching  effect,  by  far  more  able 
inquirers  into  the  authenticity  of  the  sacred  writings.  In 
rejecting  the  Epistle  of  St.  James,  as  spurious,  and  call- 
ing it  a  '  chaffy '  production,  *  unworthy  of  an  Apostle,' J 
Luther  wras  actuated,  we  know,  by  little  else  than  a  feel- 
ing of  pettish  impatience  at  the  authority  which  this 
Epistle  opposes  to  his  own  doctrine  of  Justification, — as 

period  by  Travellers  in  Germany.  Thus,  the  Baron  de  Riesbeck  says, 
in  speaking  of  Frankfort,  "  La  seule  chose  qui  nuise  a  la  liberte  de 
penser,  a  rhumanisation  des  mceurs,  et  aux  progres  du  commerce  et 
de  l'industrie,  c'est  I'inquisition  qu'exerce  le  Clerge  Lutherien,  qui 
forme  ici  la  principale  eglise." 

*  Wegschneider  possibly  meant  no  more  than  what  many  other  Ger- 
man Rationalists  (as  M.  Pusey  informs  us,)  assert — viz.  that  "  their 
scheme  is  the  perfection  of  that  Reformation  which  Luther  left  incomplete." 

f  One  of  the  earliest  of  the  Rationalists,  Meyer,  in  his  work,  "  Phi- 
losophia  Scripturse  Interpres,  (which  Semler  republished,)  contends 
strongly  against  the  notion  of  Luther,  that  there  are  many  things 
"  qua  sunt  vera  theologice  ac  philosophice  falsa.*' 

X  With  a  similar  freedom  Luther  expressed  his  opinion  of  the  re- 
lative value  of  the  other  books  of  Scripture.  The  Gospel  according 
to  John  he  called  the  Chief  Gospel,  and  preferred  it  far  to  the  other 
three.  So,  also,  the  Epistles  of  Peter  and  Paul  were  held  by  him  to 
be  far  above  the  three  Gospels  of  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke,  insomuch 
that  these  Epistles,  together  with  the  Gospel  and  First  Epistle  of  John, 
contain  all,  in  his  opinion,  that  is  necessary  for  a  Christian  to  know 
See  his  Preface  to  the  New  Testament.  1524. 


(     215     ) 

also  at  the  sanction,  perhaps,  which  it  affords  to  the  Ca» 
tholic  Sacrament  of  Extreme  Unction.  In  the  same 
manner,  his  unseemly  attacks  upon  Ecclesiastes  and 
other  Books  of  Scripture,  are  to  be  accounted  only  among 
those  post-prandial  effusions  of  his  humour,  for  which,  in 
his  soberer  moods  of  theology,  he  was  hardly  to  be  held 
responsible. 

"  Though  the  example,  therefore,  from  such  authority, 
of  a  want  of  reverence  for  any  part  of  the  received  Ca- 
non, may  have  tended  to  weaken,  in  some  minds,  that  ho- 
mage for  the  whole  which  a  long  reign  of  superstition 
had  impressed,  it  would  be  paying  much  too  high  a  com- 
pliment to  the  headlong  theology  of  Luther  to  trace  to 
his  factious  attacks  on  the  Epistle  of  St.  James  and  Ec- 
clesiastes even  the  germ  of  that  bold  school  of  scriptural 
criticism,  for  which  we  are  so  deeply  indebted  to  the  Ra- 
tionalists;— a  school,  which,  in  our  own  times,  has  pro- 
duced a  Gesenius  to  call  in  question  the  authenticity  of 
Isaiah,  and  a  Bretschneider  to  impugn  the  genuineness 
of  the  Gospel  and  Epistles  of  St.  John. 

"  For  the  rest,  taking  into  view  the  predominant  fea- 
tures of  Luther's  character, — his  intolerance,  his  ungo- 
vernable  temper,*  his  weak,  anile  superstition,! — the 

*  "  It  is  impossible,"  says  Calvin,  in  a  letter  to  Bullinger,  "  to  bear 
any  longer  with  the  violences  of  Luther,  whose  self-love  will  not  per- 
mit him  to  know  his  own  defects,  or  to  endure  contradiction."  Those 
who  wish,  indeed,  for  favourable  portraits  of  the  Reformers  must  seek 
elsewhere  than  in  the  pictures  they  have  drawn  of  each  other.  In  re- 
turn for  the  polite  names  which  Luther  lavished  upon  his  fellow  Pro- 
testants, calling  them  "  blasphemers,"  "  heretics,"  "  devils,"  &c.  they 
as  freely  retorted  upon  him  such  titles  as  the  new  Pope,  the  new  Anti- 
christ, and  said  that  "  those  who  could  bear  his  violence  must  be  as 
mad  as  himself."  The  same  candour  respecting  each  other  seems  to 
have  pervaded  the  whole  reforming  circle,  and  while  Melancthon  tells 
us  (Testim.  Prcrf.  ad  Frid.  Mycon.)  that  Carlostadt  was  a  brutal  igno- 
norant  fellow,  more  of  a  Jew  than  a  Christian,  we  are  informed  by 
Calvin  (Ep.  Calv.)  that  Bucer  was  full  of  tortuous  and  double-dealing 
ways,  and  that  Osiander  (in  whose  jokes  Luther  took  such  delight) 
was  a  man  of  the  most  profane  conversation  and  infamous  morals. 
(Mel.  Ep.  ad  Carrier. — Calv.  Ep.  ad  Mel.) 

|  Besides  the  fancies  of  Luther,  already  mentioned,  respecting  his 
interviews  and  dialogues  with  the  devil,  he  imputed  also  to  this  fami- 
liar the  severe  illness  of  which  he  was  near  dying  in  1532.  In  the  same 
manner  some  remarkable  meteoric  phenomena,  which  occurred  in  the 
following  year,  were,  as  Seckendorf  tells  us,  attributed  by  Luther  to 
diabolical  agency.  This  historian,  too,  has  preserved  a  letter  from 
the  Reformer  to  a  servant-maid  who  was  supposed  to  be  possessed  by 
a  demon,  and  nothing  could  well  be  more  weak  or  old-womanish  than 
its  contents. 

With  the  exception  of  all  that  related  to  the  operations  of  the  devil, 


(     216     ) 

tank  absurdity  of  those  parts  of  his  faith  which  he  paro- 
died from  Popery,  and  the  want  of  all  stamina  in  those 
abortions  of  doctrine  which  he  chose  to  father  himself, — 
his  utter  failure  in  bequeathing  to  his  followers  one  last- 
ing dogma,  but  his  complete  success  in  transmitting  to 
them  the  worst  bitterness  of  the  dogmatic  spirit, — having 
glaringly  before  us  these  characteristics  of  his  whole  ca- 
reer, both  as  man  and  reformer,  it  requires,  I  must  say, 
the  summoning  up  of  all  our  most  grateful  recollections 
of  the  vast  service  rendered  by  him  to  mankind,  in  throw- 
ing open  the  documents  of  Faith  to  the  search  of  Reason, 
to  keep  alive  in  our  minds  even  a  due  show  of  respect  to 
his  memory,  or  enable  us  to  listen,  without  impatience, 
to  the  eulogies  that  are  sometimes  lavished  on  his  name, 


in  which  department  Luther's  power  of  belief  shone  unrivalled,  his 
friend  Melancthon  was  even  more  grossly  superstitious  than  himself. 
It  appears  from  his  Letters  that,  while  employed  on  the  Confession  of 
Augsburg,  he  attended  anxiously  to  all  stories  of  prodigies  that  were 
abroad,  hoping  to  collect  from  them  omens  as  to  the  success  of  his 
cause.  An  extraordinary  overflow  of  the  Tiber, — a  mule  delivered  of 
a  foal,  with  a  foot  like  that  of  a  crane,  appeared  to  him,  both  of  them, 
signs  that  something  serious  was  at  hand  ;  while  the  birth  of  a  calf 
with  two  heads,  within  the  very  territory  of  Augsburg,  was  an  omen, 
he  thought,  of  the  approaching  destruction  of  Rome,  by  schism.  This 
last  portent,  indeed,  he  communicates  seriously  in  a  letter  to  Luther, 
acquainting  him  at  the  same  time  that,  on  that  very  day,  the  Confes- 
sion of  Augsburg  was  to  be  presented  to  the  Emperor!  That  a  mind, 
capable  of  such  flights  of  absurdity,  should  believe  also  in  the  predic- 
tions of  astrology  was  not  to  be  wondered  at;  and  accordingly  we  find 
that  this  noble  victim  of  superstition  was  constantly  brooding  over 
the  horrors  of  his  own  horoscope,  which  among  other  threatened  mis- 
fortunes, had  foretold  that  he  was  to  be  shipwrecked  in  the  Baltic. 

Addicted  as  was  not  only  Melancthon,  but, — as  would  seem  from 
his  letters,— the  greater  number  of  his  correspondents,  to  this  absurd 
belief  in  astrology,  it  does  not  appear,  as  far  as  I  can  learn,  that  they 
were  any  of  them  acquainted  with  the  alleged  prediction,  respecting 
Luther  himself,  which,  through  the  astrological  calculations  of  Lan- 
din,  was  discovered  in  Dante,  Infern.  Cant.  i.  (See  the  remarks  on 
this  passage  in  Mr.  Taafe's  ingenious  Comment  on  Dante.  Murray, 
1822.)  As  a  still  farther  proof  that  the  poet  could  have  meant  no  other 
than  Luther  by  his  "Greyhound,"  M.  Rossetti  has,  it  seems,  found 
out  that  the  word  Veltro  is  but  an  anagram  of  the  great  Reformer's 
name! 


(     217     ) 


CHAPTER  XLIIL 


Lecture  continued  —  the  Reformer,  Zwingli— superior  to  all  the  other* 
— his  doctrine  on  the  Lord's  Supper  and  Baptism — original  author  of 
Rationalism — followed  by  Socinus — Analogy  between  Transubstan- 
tiation  and  the  Trinity. 


"  Of  all  the  men,  whom  the  great  crisis  of  the  Refor* 
mation  called  forth,  the  most  clear-sighted,  consistent, 
and  enlightened,  was,  beyond  all  question,  Zwingli;  and 
it  is  among  the  instances  which  show  how,  in  all  such 
revolutions,  the  thinkers  anticipate  the  actors,  that  the 
mind  of  Zwingli  was  already  in  advance  on  the  road  to 
religious  freedom,  at  a  time  when  Luther  still  lingered 
in  the  dark  thraldom  of  Popery.  That  to  the  latter,  when 
once  roused,  the  praise  of  enterprise  and  its  reward,  suc- 
cess, were  most  amply  due,  cannot  be  denied.  But  the 
advantage  in  mind,  which  Zwingli  possessed  over  him  at 
starting,  he  maintained  ever  after; — not  only  throughout 
their  joint  living  career,  but  in  those  important  effects 
which  have,  to  this  day,  survived  themselves. 

"  Of  the  short-lived  dogmas,  indeed,  of  Luther,  it  may 
be  said,  (to  borrow  an  illustration  from  one  of  your  Eng- 
lish writers,)  that  '  they  rose  like  the  rocket,  and  fell  like 
the  stick ;'  while  not  a  single  one  of  those  doctrines  which 
Zwingli  either  introduced  or  adopted, — such  is  the  vita- 
lity which  good  sense  can  infuse  into  all  that  it  handles, 
— has  been  suffered  to  pass  away  from  the  Protestant 
faith ;  for,  while  his  rational  view  of  the  Eucharist  very 
early  supplanted  both  the  monstrous  mystery  of  Luther 
and  the  evasive  Real  Absence*  of  Calvin,  his  simple  and 

*  The  Calvinistic  view  of  the  Eucharist  is  thus  explained  by  a 
learned  Protestant :  "  Calvin  and  Beza  will  not  allow  the  bread  and 
wine  to  be  so  much  as  the  vehicle  of  the  body  and  blood,  but  make 
these  things  not  only  distinct  but  very  far  distant  from  each  other. 
They  allowed  nothing  but  bare  elements  to  be  taken  from  the  cele- 
brator,  and  if  men,  over  and  above,  receive  the  body  and  blood  of 
Christ,  that  was  to  be  attributed  to  their  own  faith,  by  which  they 
imagined  they  could  communicate  of  the  body  and  blood,  at  any  other 

19 


(     218     ) 

unmysterious  doctrine  respecting  Baptism  has,  for  a  long 
time,  been  adopted  by  most  Protestant  Churches,  and  has 
even  found  its  way,  in  spite  of  Catechism  and  Articles, 
among'  your  subscribing  Church  of  England  Divines. 

"Nor  was  it  so  much  by  the  example  he  thus  set  to- 
wards clearing  away  the  alleged  mysteries  of  Christiani- 
ty, as  by  the  mode  of  interpreting  the  text  of  Scripture 
which  he  adopted  for  this  purpose,  that  Zwingli  esta- 
blished his  claims  to  the  gratitude  of  all  lovers  of  the  rea- 
sonable and  the  intelligible.  The  rule  laid  down  by  him, 
for  this  great  object,  and  which  he  fully  exemplified  in 
his  own  manner  of  dealing  with  the  Eucharist,  is  simply 
as  follows: — never  to  let  the  mere  literal  sense  of  a  pas- 
sage of  Scripture  stand  in  the  way  of  a  rational  interpre- 
tation of  its  meaning;  but,  wherever  the  words,  taken 
literally,  would  imply  something  irreconcilable  to  rea- 
son, to  solve  the  difficulty  by  having  recourse  to  a  me- 
taphorical sense. 

"  Thus  when  Christ,  for  instance,  in  instituting  the 
Eucharist,  said,  taking  the  bread  in  his  hands,  '  This  is 
my  body,'  the  words,  thus  solemnly  uttered,  were  accept- 
ed, there  is  no  doubt,  by  the  Primitive  Christians,  in  their 
strict  literal  sense,*  even  as  Christ  himself  uttered  them; 
and  the  miracle  which  he  then  announced,  as  one  per- 
manent, through  all  future  time,  in  his  Church,  held  its 
place  in  the  faith  of  the  whole  Christian  world  for  a  pe- 
riod of  no  less  than  fifteen  centuries. 


place,  and  in  any  other  religious  action,  as  well  as  at  the  Lord's  Ta- 
ble or  at  the  Sacrament." — Johnson's  Unbloody  Sacrifice. 

The  eame  industrious  inquirer  into  Christian  antiquity,  says,  in 
speaking  of  the  view  of  this  Sacrament  now  prevalent  in  the  Church 
of  England: — "But  what  all  ages  and  Christians  before  thought  too 
mean  and  base  to  be  the  whole  entertainment  for  pious  souls  at  the 
Table  of  the  Lord,  that  is,  mere  bread  and  wine,  without  either  natu- 
ral or  spiritual  body,  and  blood  joined  to  them,  or  accompanying  them, 
without  any  divine  grace  or  benediction  shed  upon  them  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,— these  weak  elements,  barely  set  apart  for  a  pious  use,  our 
Arminians  and  Socinians  have  substituted  for  the  Medicine  of  Immor- 
tality, the  Sanctifying  Food,  the  Heavenly  as  well  as  Earthly  Thing, 
the  Spiritual  Nourishment,  the  Divine  Substance,  the  Tremendou* 
Mystery  of  the  Ancients. 

*  To  this  belief,  as  being  that  of  the  ancient  Church,  the  immortal 
Leibnitz  thus  bears  testimony:— Aiunt  enim  (the  Impanatores)  cor- 
pus Christi  exhibere  in,  cum  et  sub  pane:  itaque  cum  Christus  dixit, 
hoc  est  corpus  meum,  intelligunt  quemadmodum  si  quis  sacco  ostenso 
diceret  haec  est  pecunia.  Sed  pia  antiquitas  aperte  satis  declaravit  pa- 
rtem mutari  in  corpas  Ckristi,  vinum  in  sanguinem  passimque  hie  vete- 
res  agnoscunt  metastoicheisin  quam  Latini  transubstantionem  re&te 
verterunt.— Systema  Thcolegicum. 


(     219     ) 

u  In  the  just  confidence,  however,  that  no  antiquity, 
however  venerable,  has  any  right  to  establish  a  prescrip- 
tion in  favour  of  fiction  anil  error,  the  philosophic  mind 
of  Zwingli  at  once  saw  through  the  misconception  which 
had,  even  from  the  apostles  themselves,  veiled  the  mean- 
ing of  these  words,  and,  by  the  application  of  that  test  of 
scriptural  truth  to  which  I  have  just  referred,  showed 
manifestly  that,  in  saying  of  the  bread,  •  This  is  my 
body,'  Christ  could  have  meant  only  •  This  signifies?  or 
*  is  the  sign  of  my  body.' 

"It  was,  I  repeat,  in  his  bold  adoption  and  enforcement 
of  this  simple  mode  of  interpretation  that  Zwingli' s  chief 
and  inappreciable  service  to  the  cause  of  Rationalism  lay. 
For,  though  he  himself  did  not  extend  the  principle  far- 
ther than  to  the  Eucharist  and  Baptism,  it  has  been,  by 
later  followers  in  the  same  naturalizing  path,  applied  to 
other  mysteries  not  less  untenable.  It  is,  therefore,  to 
the  example  iirst  set  by  this  Reformer  in  rejecting  all 
that  was  miraculous  in  the  Sacraments,  that  we  owe 
that  process  of  simplification  which  the  whole  system  of 
Christianity  since  has  undergone,  till,  gradually  purified 
through  the  successive  strainers  of  Arminianism,  Socini- 
anism,  and  Unitarianism,  it  has,  at  length,  settled  into 
that  clear  and,  if  I  may  so  say,  filtered  state  of  belief,  un- 
obscured  by  mystery,  and  unimbittered  by  controversy, 
which  is  exhibited  in  the  rationalized  creed  of  our  Pro- 
testant churches  at  this  day. 

"In  mystery  and  supernaturalism  has  ever  lain  the 
strong-hold  of  priestly  influence ;  and  the  two  grand  and 
unfailing  sources  of  this  influence,  in  the  creed  which 
preceded  those  of  the  Reformation,  were  the  Real  Pre- 
sence and  the  Trinity.  In  getting  rid  of  the  first  of 
these,  the  Swiss  Reformer  not  only  opened  an  inlet  for 
light  on  this  one  particular  point,  where,  as  Milton  said 
of  his  own  blindness,  '  Wisdom  was  at  one  entrance, 
quite  shut  out,'  but  also,  by  the  principle  which  he  ap- 
plied, as  a  touch-stone  to  this  long-standing  miracle,  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  fate,  at  no  distant  day,  of  its  twin 
mystery,  the  Trinity.  He  was,  in  fact,  suspected  of  be- 
ing, on  this  latter  doctrine  also,  a  Rationalist;  insomuch 
that  Luther,  who  was  too  acute  not  to  perceive  that  all 
such  mysteries  have  one  common  cause,  called  on  him 
publicly  for  an  explanation  of  his  orthodoxy  on  the  sub' 
ject, 


(     220     ) 

11  It  was,  indeed,  hardly  possible  these  men  should  be 
blind  to  the  sure  and  natural  consequences  of  the  revo- 
lutionary principle  which  they  were  introducing  into  re- 
ligion; and  how  clearly  Melancthon,  at  least,  foresaw 
that  the  Nicene  mystery  of  the  Trinity  would,  in  its  turn, 
be  arraigned  at  the  bar  of  all-judging  Reason,  appears 
from  a  passage  in  one  of  his  letters,  where,  speaking  of 
Servetus,  he  says,  '  You  know  I  always  feared  that  there 
would  be,  at  last,  this  outbreak  about  the  Trinity.  Good 
God!  what  tragedies  will  these  questions,  'Whether  the 
Word  is  a  Person,  Whether  the  Spirit  is  a  Person,  give 
rise  to  among  our  descendants!'* 

"  So  conscious  was  Zwingli  himself  of  the  invaluable 
prize  which  he  had  lighted  on,  in  this  discovery  of  a  mode 
of  interpreting  Scripture  which  would  bring  its  myste- 
ries down  to  the  level  of  human  reason,  that  he  used  to 
call  his  application  of  this  principle  to  Christ's  words,  his 
1  Margarita  felix,'  or  '  happy  pearl,' — as  though  with  a 
sort  of  joyful  anticipation  he  was  looking  forward  to  those 
still  farther  triumphs  over  error  which  future  cham- 
pions of  Reason  would,  with  the  same  simple  weapon, 
achieve.f 

"Nor  was  there  long  wanting  one  to  wield  this  wea- 
pon with  a  degree  of  courage  and  effect  which  will  for 
ever  render  his  name  '  a  hissing '  in  all  priestly  ears, — 
the  learned  and  excellent  Socinus.  The  very  same 
principles  of  interpretation  by  which  Zwingli  had  been 
enabled  to  relieve  Christianity  from  the  portentous  incu- 
bus of  a  Real  Presence,  were  made  equally  available  by 
Socinus  for  the  subversion  of  Christ's  divinity,  and  of  all 
the  complex  machinery  of  mysteries  connected  with  that 
belief.J     In  one  of  his  works,  on  this  latter  subject,  wTe 

*  ITs£/  t»c  T£/*/c?  scis  me  semper  veritum  esse  fore  ut '  haec  ali- 
quando  erumperent.  Bone  Deus,  quales  tragcedias  exeitabit  hcec  quaes- 
tio  ad  Posteros,  u  evriv  u7ro?Tct.? ic  o  Aoyos  u  &rrsr   VTrcrrxrt;  to 

nviu/u*. — Lib.  4.  Ep.  140. 

t  In  this  mode  of  interpretation,  as  in  every  thing  else,  the  ancient 
heretics  anticipated  the  modern.  Thus  Tertuliian  tells  us  (de  Resur- 
rect. Carnis)  that  those  who  opposed,  in  his  time,  the  doctrine  of  the 
Resurrection  of  the  flesh  argued  that  "  the  language  of  Scripture  is  fre- 
quently figurative,  and  ought  to  be  so  considered  in  this  instance;  the 
resurrection  of  which  it  speaks  being  a  moral  or  spiritual  resurrec- 
tion." 

X  The  doctrine  of  Christ's  Satisfaction,  for  instance,  is  thus  got  rid 
of  by  Socinus:—"  Even  though  I  should  find  it  written,  not  to  say 


(     221     ) 

find  the  great  parent  of  Socinianism  pointing  out  as  well 
the  analogy  that  exists  between  Transubstantiation  and 
the  Trinity  as  the  similar  processes  of  reasoning  by  which 
both  are  to  be  rejected  ;*  and  the  following  are  the  terms 
in  which  he  sums  up  his  parallel:— 

11 '  But,  as  the  monstrous  and  sophistical  notion  of  the 
Eucharist  has  been,  by  the  help  of  God,  so  plainly  ex- 
posed that  even  children,  with  reason,  laugh  at  and  ex- 
plode it,  and  it  is  now  evident  that  what  was  reckoned  the 
most  divine  mystery  of  the  Christian  religion  is  the  gross- 
est idolatry*  so  we  hope  that  the  shocking  fictions  concern- 
ing our  God  and  his  Christ  which  at  present  are  supposed 
to  be  sacred  and  worthy  of  the  deepest  reverence,  and  to 
constitute  the  principal  mysteries  of  our  religion,  will, 
with  God's  permission,  be  so  laid  open  and  treated  with 
such  scorn  that  every  one  will  be  ashamed  to  embrace 
them,  or  even  bestow  any  attention  on  them.' — Socin. 
Opera,  tcm.  I. 

"  It  is  more  peculiarly,  perhaps,  in  that  branch  of  the 
history  of  the  Reformation  which  relates  to  the  rise  and 
progress  of  Anti-Trinitarian  doctrines  that  we  are  able 
to  trace,  step  by  step,  the  natural  working  of  the  princi- 
ple" which  that  revolution,  in  favour  of  reason,  against  au- 
thority, introduced.     The  impossibility  of  fixing  a  boun- 


once,  but  frequently,  in  the  Sacred  Writings,  I  still  would  not  believe 
it  in  the  sense  which  you  have  put  on  it.  For,  as  that  is  utterly  im- 
possible, I  would  interpret  all  such  passages  accordingly,  giving  them 
the  sense  that  suited  my  views  of  the  matter,  as  I  have  done  with 
many  other  passages  of  the  Scriptures." — Socin.  Lib.  3,  de  Servatore. 

As  farther  specimens  of  his  manner  of  applying  this  rule  of  interpre- 
tation, it  need  only  be  mentioned  that  in  his  Exposition  of  the  First 
Chapter  of  John's  Gospel  he  overleaps  the  difficulty  which  there  meets 
him  in  limine  by  maintaining  that  John,  in  calling  Jesus  the  Word  of 
God,  uses  at  once  a  metaphor  and  a  metonymy;  and  the  passage  (v.  14,) 
where  it  is  said  that  "  the  Word  was  made  Flesh,"  he  explains  away 
by  showing  that  the  verb  ryzviro,  which  is  here  translated  "  was  made," 
means  sometimes  simply  "  was."  "  Therefore,"  he  adds,  "  we  ought 
not,  in  this  passage,  to  translate  the  verb  was  made  flesh,  but  was  flesh. 
For  it  has  been  sufficiently  proved  already  that  by  the  term,  the  Word% 
must  be  understood  the  man  who  was  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  who 
could  not  be  made  fle^h,  but  was  flesh." — A  disciple,  it  must  be  owned, 
worthy  of  him  who  first  showed  that  the  words,  "  This  is  my  body," 
mean  4l  This  signifies  my  body !" 

*  The  biographer  of  Socinus,  Toulmin,  in  defending  this  mode  of 
44  having  recourse  to  a  figurative  and  more  lax  sense  of  all  such  pas- 
sages as  otherwise  assert  things  derogatory  to  the  divine  perfections," 
adds,  "  There  is  no  other  way  of  evading  the  force  of  the  Papist's  argu- 
ment for  Transubsiantiathn,frem  the  express  words  of  the  Institution," 

19* 


(     222     ) 

uary,  at  which  Reason,  once  started  on  her  inquisitorial 
career,  shall  content  to  rein  in  her  speed,  could  not  be 
more  strikingly  exemplified  than  in  those  successive 
stages  of  reform  by  which  the  dignity  of  Christ's  nature 
was  lowered  from  its  divine  station,  losing,  at  every 
stage,  some  attribute  of  glory  that  once  belonged  to  it, — 
first,  to  the  subordinate,  but  still  heavenly  rank  assigned 
to  it  by  the  Arians;  then,  by  a  farther  fall,  to  the  region, 
half  heavenly,  half  earthly,  of  Socinianism;  and  from 
thence  down,  by  rapid  descent,  to  the  entirely  human  so- 
lution of  the  whole  mystery,  in  the  creed  of  the  Uni- 
tarian. 


»»H$@ 


CHAPTER  XLIV. 

Lecture  continued. — Anti-Trinitarian  doctrines  among  the  Reform- 
ers.— Valentinus  Gentilis. — Socinianism — its  weak  points. — Pro- 
gress of  Anti-Trinitarianism— the  Holy  Spirit,  not  a  Person,  but  an 
Attribute. 

"  Among  those  bolder  speculators  who  ventured,  early 
in  the  progress  of  the  Reformation,  to  express  openly 
their  dissent  from  the  received  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 
the  only  one  whose  opinions  on  the  subject  seem  to  have 
been  stated  clearly,  either  by  himself  or  others,  was  Va- 
lentinus Gentilis.  This  Italian  Reformer  (one  of  the 
scions  from  that  nursery  of  Anti-Trinitarianism,  esta- 
blished in  the  year  1546,  at  Vicenza)  though  he  was  for 
despoiling  the  Saviour  of  his  Godhead,  still  allowed  him 
to  have  been  a  super-angelic  spirit,  born  before  all  worlds, 
who  became  incarnate  in  the  human  body  of  Jesus,  with 
the  view  of  effecting  the  salvation  of  man. 

"  The  next  step,  in  the  descending  scale,  was  the  doc- 
trine of  Socinus,  who,  rejecting,  as  a  notion  unsanctioned 
by  scriptural  evidence,  all  belief  in  the  pre-existence 
and  superior  nature  of  Christ,  held  that  he  was,  by  na- 
ture, man,  though  of  miraculous  birth, — being  conceived 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  born  of  a  virgin,  without  the  in- 
tervention of  any  human  being.    Thus  being  properly, 


(     223     ) 

said  Socinus,  the  Son  of  God,  and  endued  with  divine 
wisdom  and  power,  Christ  was  sent,  with  supreme  autho- 
rity, on  an  embassy  to  mankind ;  and,  after  his  death  and 
resurrection,  becoming",  like  a  God,  immortal,  received 
from  the  Father  all  power  in  heaven  and  earth,  having 
all  things,  with  the  exception  of  God  himself  alone, 
placed  under  his  feet.  To  a  being  invested  with  this  di- 
vine sovereignty  it  seemed  naturally  to  follow  that  di- 
vine worship  was  due;  and  Socinus,  in  according  such 
worship,  was  far  more  consistent  than  a  great  number  of 
his  followers,*  who,  while  they  hesitated  not  to  believe 
that  a  human  creature  could  have  been  elevated  to  all 
this  God-like  sway,  yet,  with  a  reservation  not  very  in- 
telligible, refused  to  invoke  so  mighty  a  sovereign  in 
their  prayers. 

"  It  required,  in  truth,  but  a  very  little  farther  advance 
of  the  rationalizing  principle  to  supersede,  by  some  more 
plausible  scheme,  the  well-meant,  but  wholly  untenable 
system  of  Socinus,  who,  by  this  transfer  of  all  the  power 
of  heaven  and  earth  into  subordinate  hands,  made  of 
Christ  a  sort  of  Maire  du  Palais  and  degraded  the  Al- 
mighty into  a  Faineant.  One  of  his  disciples,  Palseologus, 
had  suggested, — evidently  as  a  means  of  escape  from  the 
grand  absurdity  of  their  system, — that  though  such  power 
might  have  been  intrusted  to  Christ,  during  his  stay  on 
earth  and  before  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  he  had,  since  his 
death,  resigned  all  into  the  hands  of  the  Father,  and  no 
longer  himself  directed  the  concerns  of  his  kingdom. 
This  easy  escape,  however,  out  of  an  absurdity,  which 
was  even  more  gross  than  that  of  the  believers  in  the 
God-man,f  was  rejected  indignantly  by  Socinus,  who, 

*  The  same  spirit  of  variation  and  dissension  which  has  marked 
the  course  of  every  other  branch  of  Protestantism  we  find  also  among 
the  Socinians.  After  the  arrival  of  Socinus  in  Poland,  the  Unitarians 
there  formed  thirty-two  distinct  societies,  which  had,  as  we  are  told, 
scarcely  any  common  principle  but  this,  that  Jesus  Christ  was  not  the 
true  God. — Dictionnaire  des  Heresies. 

Those  who  take  an  interest  in  the  history  of  Unitarian  doctrines 
will  find  their  curiosity  gratified  by  the  instructive  sketch  of  the  pro- 
gress of  Socinianism  which  Dr.  Rees  has  prefixed  to  his  edition  of  the 
Racovian  Catechism. 

t  The  absurdity  of  the  scheme  of  Socinus  is  thus  sneered  at  by  a 
brother  infidel — "  And  though  the  Socinians  disown  this  practice  [of 
allowing  seeming  contradictions  in  religion,]  I  am  mistaken  if  either 
they  or  the  Arians  can  make  their  notions  of  a  dignified  and  Creature- 
God  capable  of  Divine  worship  appear  more  reasonable  than  the  extra- 


(     224     ) 

'with  the  self-opinion  characteristic  of  a  system-mohgef* 
Still  persevered  in  his  own  views ;  and  the  following  ex- 
tract from  his  answer  to  Palseologus,  in  which,  it  will  be 
perceived,  he  disposes  of  all  the  arrangements  of  the 
iDivine  government  as  familiarly  as  he  would  any  matters 
of  mere  earthly  concernment,  will  show,  at  once,  the  dif- 
ficulties of  the  system  which  he  wished  to  substitute  for 
the  Trinity,  and  the  grossly  human  hypothesis  by  which 
he  endeavoured  to  get  rid  of  them. 

"  Thus  does  he  argue  with  his  disciple: — 

"  '  If  Christ  be  not  removed  to  any  distant  place,  from 
whence  he  cannot  himself  govern  his  kingdom;  if  he  be 
not  hindered  by  other  engagements;  if,  lastly,  he  live  for 
ever  and  be  not  fallen  into  inactive  sleep,  it  is  most  weak 
to  suppose  that  he  hath  resigned  his  kingdom  to  the  Fa- 
ther, especially  when  the  sacred  Scriptures  say  not  a 
word  of  it. 

"If  you  allow  Christ's  care  o£  his  kingdom  before  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  as  is  very  plain,  for  what  reason 
should  you  deny  it  after  this,  and  assert  that  he  has  re- 
signed it  to  his  Father !  Is  it  because  Christ  has  perhaps 
since  removed  to  some  remote  place  from  whence  he  may 
not  be  able  to  govern  his  kingdom,  or  is  so  engaged  in 
other  concerns  as  to  have  no  leisure  for  this  office !  or 
does  he  sleep  during  thi3  interval ;  for  I  cannot  imagine 
that  you  will  be  so  mad  as  to  sav  that  he  is  ao-ain  dead.** 
Socin.  Opera,  Tom.  II. 

"This,  from  a  worshipper  of  the  Power  of  Reason* 
was,  it  must  be  owned,  but  a  sorry  offering  at  her  shrine. 
But  even  the  failures  of  such  bold  adventurers,  in  the 
cause  of  truth,  have  their  use; — the  very  wrecks  they 
leave  become  beacons  for  the  guidance  of  those  who  fol- 
low them.  The  opinion,!  that  Christ  was  neither  to  be 
worshipped  nor  invoked,  was  but  a  forerunner  of  those 

Vagancies  of  other  sects,  touching  the  article  of  the  Trinity. "—Toland's 
■ChrisUaviti1  not  vtysterious. 

*  Who  could  believe  that  it  was  of  a  man  capable  of  uttering  such 
blasphemies  that  the  following  eulogium  was  pronounced? — "High, 
most  deservedly  high  as  those  great  ^Reformers  stand,  Luther,  Zuin- 
glius,  and  Calvin,  in  the  Book  of  Fame,  Faustus  Socinus  will  be  found 
to  rank  as  high  in  the  Book  of  Life,  which  is  of  more  consequence."— 
Ideological  Repository.  Vol.  I. 

t  If  we  may  believe  his  persecutor,  Socinus,  (for,  however  strange 
it  may  appear,  these  apostles  of  free-thinking  have  almost  all  been 
£ers?cutors)  David  went  so  far  as  to  assert  that  "it  was  the  same 


(     225     ) 

farther  curtailments  of  his  dignity  which  were  soon,  in 
the  natural  course  of  such  sifting  inquiries,  to  take  place. 
It  was  now  found  that  his  miraculous  conception  was  un- 
supported by  any  scriptural  authority,  besides  that  of  the 
introductory  Chapters  of  the  Gospels  of  Matthew  and 
Luke;  and  this  evidence,  on  the  subject,  a  bold  and 
unscrupulous  spirit  of  criticism,  which  had  now  enlisted 
itself  in  the  serviee  of  Rationalism,  pronounced  to  be 
spurious.* 

"  The  simple  humanity  of  Christ's  nature  being  thus 
clearly  established,  all  that  contusion  between  celestial 
and  earthly  natures,  which  had  so  long  puzzled  and 
shocked  ail  reflecting  Christians,  was,  to  the  great  relief 
of  common  sense,  effectually  got  rid  of;  while,  by  a  si- 
milar verdict,  or  rather  series  of  verdicts,  the  third  mem- 
ber of  the  Trinity  was  disposed  of  in  the  same  rational 
and  satisfactory  manner.  By  a  scale  of  reduction,  even 
more  summary  and  rapid,  the  Holy  Spirit  was,  in  like 
manner,  lowered,  till,  from  its  high  and  substantial  sta- 
tion, as  a  constituent  Person  of  the  Godhead,  it  came  to 
be  stripped,  at  last,  of  all  claims  to  be  considered  a  Per- 
son, at  all ; — the  conclusion  to  which  the  Socinian  Re- 
formers came,  on  this  point,  being  that  the  Holy  Ghost 
implies  the  Power  and  Energy  of  God,  and  is,  according 
to  the  Scriptures,  not  a  person,  but  an  attribute.! 

"  In  this  outline  of  the  course  of  one  of  the  great 
branches  of  the  Reformation,  may  be  traced  the  working, 
step  by  step,  of  that  naturalizing  principle  which  has 

thins  t0  invoke  Jesus  Christ  as  to  pray  to  the  Virgin  Mary  and  other 
dead  saints." — Socin.  Opera,  Tom.  2. 

*  Some  of  the  English  Unitarians,  content  with  rejecting  only  the 
two  first  chapters  of  Matthew,  retain  those  of  Luke,  in  which  the  pas- 
sage relating  to  the  miraculous  conception  has  been  explained  by  one 
of  their  most  learned  writers,  as  not  necessarily  supposing  that  there 
was  any  thing  supernatural  in  the  conception  of  Jesus. —  Unitarianism 
the  Doctrine  of  the  Gospel,  by  Dr.  Carpenter. 

t  After  referring  to  numerous  authorities  on  this  point,  one  of  the 
Editors  of  the  Racovian  Catechism  (Wissawatius)  thus  concludes  : — 
"  It  is  most  safe,  therefore,  adhering  to  the  proper  import  of  the  word, 
to  believe  the  Holy  Spirit  to  be  the  power  and  energy  of  God,  and  conse- 
quently his  gift,  as  is  clearly  revealed  to  us  in  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
both  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament."  There  was,  on  this  point,  how- 
ever, some  difference  of  opinion  among  these  sectaries,  and  the  Father 
of  the  English  Unitarians,  John  Biddl.-,  was  one  of  those  who,  as  we 
are  told,  "  took  the  Holy  Spirit  to  be  a  Person,  Chief  of  the  Heavenly 
Spirits,  Prime  Minister  of  God  and  Christ,  and  therefore  called  the 
Spirit,  by  way  of  excellence."— Brief  History  of  the  Unitarians,  1687. 


(     226     ) 

more  or  less  operated,  throughout  the  progress  of  them 
nil,  and  must,  sooner  or  later,  bring  all  to  the  same  sim- 
plified result.  And  for  these  happy  effects, — still  happier 
in  the  farther  consequences  yet  to  spring  from  them,— 
we  are  indebted,  primarily,  of  course,  to  that  grand  prin- 
ciple of  the  Reformation,  which  brought  matters  of  faith 
within  the  jurisdiction  of  Reason,  but  secondarily,  and 
above  all  others,  to  him  who  asserted  that  principle  in  its 
fullest  extent,  the  bold  and  philosophic-minded  Zwingli. 

"  In  fact,  by  none  of  those  who  co-operated  with  him 
Was  the  spirit  of  their  mighty  cause  maintained  with  half 
Such  consistency,  while  living,  or  transmitted  with  half 
such  effect  to  other  times.  Luther  himself  was,  as  I  have 
shown,  disqualified  both  by  his  temper  and  his  supersti* 
tion*  for  leaving  behind  him  any  durable  monument  but 
his  name;  while  Melancthon,  though  hurried  forward 
in  the  foaming  wake  of  his  leader,  still  sighed  for  the 
safe  moorings  of  the  Church,  and  was,  at  heart,  half  Pa- 
pist, f 

"  Nor  less  unfit,  though  in  a  very  different  point  of 
View,  was  Calvin,  for  the  task  of  reconciling  religion  to 
reason,  and  establishing  a  faith  such  as  men  of  sense 

*  To  the  picture  of  Luther's  already  presented  in  these  pages,  I  can- 
not help  adding  two  more  touches, — one,  from  his  own  unerring  hand, 
— which  the  above  remark  of  the  Professor  suggests  to  me.  In  a  pre- 
face to  his  works,  written  but  a  short  time  before  his  death,  the  Re- 
former says,  "  When  I  engaged  in  the  cause  of  the  Reformation  I  was 
a  most  frantic  Papist;  so  intoxicated,  nay,  so  drenched  in  the  dogmas 
of  the  Pope,  that  I  was  quite  ready  to  "put  to  death,  if  I  had  been 
able,  or  to  co-operate  with  those  who  would  have  put  to  death, 
persons  who  refused  obedience  to  the  Pope,  in  any  single  arti- 
cle." That  he  carried  this  amiable  temper  with  him  into  the  new  ex- 
treme which  he  espoused  cannot  be  doubted;  and  I  shall  only  add  to 
the  specimens  already  given  of  the  tolerance  of  his  spirit  the  account 
which  Seckendorf,  the  able  apologist  both  of  Lutheranism  and  its  au- 
thor, has  left  on  record  respecting  the  dispositions  of  his  hero  towards 
the  Jews.  M  It  was  Luthor's  opinion,11  says  Seckendorf,  '•  that  their 
synagogues  should  be  levelled  with  the  ground,  their  houses  destroyed, 
their  books  of  prayer  and  of  the  Talmud,  and  of  the  Old  Testament  bo 
taken  from  them,  that  their  Rabbis  should  be  forbidden  to  teach,  and 
forced  by  hard  labour  to  get  their  bread,"  &c.  &c. 

f  The  Professor  alludes,  no  doubt,  to  Melancthon's  opinions  in  fa- 
vour of  the  Primacy  of  the  Pope,  as  well  as  his  decidedly  Catholic  lan- 
guage, on  the  subject  of  the  Eucharist,  in  the  Apology  for  the  Confes- 
sion of  Augsburg.  It  is  curious  enough  that  the  very  same  passage, 
from  the  ancient  Canon  of  the  Mass,  (implying  expressly  a  change 
of  substance,  in  the  elements,  after  consecration)  which  gave  such 
scandal  by  its  admission  into  Melancthon's  Apology,  was  adopted  af- 
terwards into  the  Liturgy  which  Charles  I.  endeavoured  to  force  on  the 
people  of  Scotland. 


(     227     ) 

could  adopt.  After  rejecting,— or  rather  juggling  away,* 
— the  oldest  mystery  of  Christianity,  he  introduced  others,, 
entirely  unknown  to  antiquity,  in  its  place;  and,  while 
that  which  he  cast  off  was  but  chargeable  with  being  of- 
fensive to  human  reason,  what  he  adopted  implies  im- 
peachment of  the  character  of  God  himself.  For  what 
less  can  be  said  of  his  mystery  of  Election  and  Reproba- 
tion— a  mystery  into  whose  dark  recesses  none  can  look 
without  shuddering,  and  which  would  make  of  the  A^ 
mighty  a  Being  such  as  even  his  own  Chosen  could  not 
love.f 

"  To  Zwingli,  in  short,  alone,  of  all  that  memorable 
band,  can  the  combined  qualities  required  to  constitute 
a  great  Reformer  be  attributed,  Enterprising,  but  tenv 
pcrate,  keeping  the  speculative  in  subordination  to  the 

*  By  no  other  word  than  "juggle  "  could  the  Professor  have  half  go 
justly  described  the  sort  of  conjuror's  process  by  which  Calvin,  in  his 
mere  mockery  of  a  Sacrament,  first  lays  before  us  the  "  proper  subr 
stance"  (as  he  proclaims  it)  of  Christ's  body;  assuring  us  that  it  is  as 
substantially  present  to  the  communicant  as  was  the  Holy  Spirit  un- 
der the  form  of  a  dove,  and  then,  presto,  by  a  sudden  wave  of  the  wand, 
converting  this  real  presence  into  an  absence,  and  showing  that  the 
receiver  and  the  thing  received  are  as  distant  from  each  other  as  earth 
is  from  heaven  1 

It  is  a  strong  proof,  however,  of  the  force  of  our  Saviour's  words,  in 
instituting  the  Eucharist,  that,  while  they  compelled  Luther,  against 
his  will,  to  believe  in  a  Real  Presence,  they  forced  Calvin,  with  no 
less  reluctance,  to  endeavour  to  seem  to  believe  in  it;— though,  after 
all,  the  true  explanation  of  Calvin's  doctrine  on  this  point,  is  to  be 
found  in  the  profane  pun  of  his  disciple  Beza,  who  said  that  the  body 
of  Christ  "  non  magis  esse  in  Ccma  quam  in  Cee7tq." 

t  The  following  concise  and  just  statement  of  the  fearful  hypothesis 
of  Calvinism  is  from  Bishop  Copleston's  clearly  reasoned  treatise  on 
the  subject. — "  We  cannot,  indeed,  conceive  how  a  Being  who  knows 
all  things  that  will  come  to  pass  should  subject  another  being  of  his 
own  creating  to  trial;  that  he  should  expose  this  being  to  temptation, 
knowing  what  the  issue  will  be,  and  yet  speak  to  him  before,  and  treat 
him  afterwards,  as  if  he  did  not  know  it."  I  have  already  shown 
(page  187)  into  what  frightful  blasphemies  the  natural  consequence  of 
this  doctrine  betrayed  Luther  and  other  supporters  of  it. 

With  equal  conciseness  another  necessary  consequence  of  Calvinism 
was  put  by  a  certain  Landgrave  of  Turing,  a  great  patron  of  the  Re- 
formed Doctrines,  who,  on  being  admonished  by  his  friends  of  the  dis- 
solute course  of  life  he  was  leading,  made  answer,  "  Si  prsedestinatus 
sum,  nulla  peccata  poterunt  mini  regnum  ccelorum  auferre  ;  si  praesci- 
tus,  nulla  opera  mini  illud  valebunt  conferre."  "  If  I  am  one  of  the 
Elect,  no  crimes  that  I  may  commit  can  deprive  me  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  ;  if  I  am  one  of  the  Reprobate,  no  works  that  [  can  perform  will 
avail  any  thing  towards  bestowing  it  on  me." — "  An  objection  (adds 
Dr.  Heylin,  by  whom  the  circumstance  is  mentioned)  not  more  old  than 
common,  but  such,  I  must  confess,  to  which  I  never  found  a  satisfactory 
answer  from  the  pen  of  Supralapsarian  or  Sublapsarian,  witfcin  tfa 
email  compass  of  my  reading."— Quinquarticular  History, 


(     228     ) 

practical,  and  while  throwing  his  energies  into  the  pre- 
sent, still  looking  forward  to  the  interests  of  the  future^ 
— firm  in  his  own  views  and  purposes,  yet  tolerant  of  the 
opposing  opinions  of  others, — this  great  man  not  only, 
while  living,  showed  himself  worthy  of  the  free  cause  for 
which  he  died,  but,  in  dying,  bequeathed  a  legacy  of  his 
spirit  to  mankind  in  the  rational  mode  of  interpreting  the 
Scriptures  which  he  taught,  and  the  consequent  release 
from  mystery,  and  its  attendant,  Priestcraft,  which  the 
application  of  that  golden  rule  has  since  achieved  for  us. 

"  To  the  slow,  but  sure,  working  of  this  one  simple 
principle,  we  are  indebted,  I  repeat,  for  the  state  of  the 
Christian  wTorld  at  this  moment.  Hence,  that  philosophic 
calm,  or, — as  fanatics  choose  to  denominate  it, — Indif- 
ferentism,  which  has  succeeded  to  the  bitter  and  vehement 
controversies  that  once  convulsed  all  Europe.  Hence, 
the  deniers  of  Christ's  divinity,  whose  fate,  in  former 
times,  would  have  been  the  dungeon  or  the  stake,  may 
now  deny,  with  impunity, — may  even  pass  muster  as 
Christians,  and  take  their  station  in  the  rear-ranks  of  Be- 
lief unmolested.* 

"  Even  into  regions  that  might  have  been  supposed  the 
least  accessible  to  such  light,  the  subtle  influence  of  this 
principle  has  yet  unerringly  worked  its  way ;  for,  look  to 
your  boasted  Church  of  England, — who  could  ever,  in  the 
days  of  an  Abbot  or  a  Laud,  have  foreseen  the  possibility 
of  such  phenomena,  among  her  Bishops,  as  a  Hoadly  and 
a  Clayton  If     What  prophet  would  have  then  dared  to 

*  The  position  of  Ifnitarianism  on  the  scale  of  Christian  belie/is  well 
described  by  the  late  Bishop  Heber,  who  calls  it  a  system  which  "  leans 
on  the  utmost  verge  of  Christianity,  and  which  has  been  in  so  many 
instances  a  stepping  stone  to  simple  Deism."  The  accomplished  Bishop 
would,  no  doubt,  have  been  shocked  to  be  told  (what  is,  nevertheless, 
but  too  true)  that  his  own  religion  was  but  the  first  of  the  stepping- 
stones  in  this  path. 

t  Of  the  Essay  on  Spirit  which  this  distinguished  Prelate  of  the 
Church  of  Ireland  published  under  his  own  name,  in  1751,  the  zealous 
Whitaker  thus  speaks  :— "  This  folly  (of  Arianism)  has  been  recently 
revived  by  what  appears  a  monster  of  absurdity  to  these  later  ages,  an 
Arian  Bishop  of  the  Church.  Bishop  Clayton  revived  it  in  his  Essay 
on  Spirit." 

It  has  been  said  that  Clayton  was  only  guilty  of  the  imprudence  of 
lending  his  name  to  this  work,  which  was,  in  reality,  the  production 
of  a  young  clergyman  of  his  diocess.  But  the  hostility  of  this  bishop, 
not  only  to  the  Athanasian,  but  the  Nicene  Creed,  and  the  bold  effort 
which  he  made,  by  appealing  to  the  house  of  Lords  on  the  subject,  to 
have  both  Creeds  expunged  from  the  Liturgy  of  the  Irish  Church,  show 


(     229     ) 

predict  that  a  day  would  yet  arrive,  when  the  mark  of 
Arius  would  be  seen  peeping  from  under  the  mitres  of 
the  Establishment,  and  even  Socinianism  be  allowed  to 
touch,  with  her  disenchanting  wand,  the  long*  vaunted 
orthodoxy  of  the  Church  of  England  Sacraments'1* 


^■^Hry^  ^^  ^44***"" 


CHAPTER  XLV. 


Lecture  continued. — Effects  of  the  relationizing  mode  of  interpretation 
as  exhibited  in  Germany. — Contrasts  between  past  and  present  state 
of  Protestantism. — Inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  rejected. — Authen- 
ticity of  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  questioned,  &c.  &c. 

"We  have  seen  that,  even  within  the  guarded  pre- 
cincts of  the  Church  of  England  Establishment, — pledged, 
as  it  is,  by  Articles,  and  moreover  bribed,  by  rich  rewards, 
into  orthodoxy, — the  natural  consequences  of  the  primal 
principle  of  Protestantism  have,  in  many  instances,  shown 
themselves,  and  would,  doubtless,  under  a  system  of 
Church  Government,  less  appealing  to  strong  worldly 
considerations,  have  been  still  more  fully,  or  I  should 
rather  say,  more  openly  developed. 

"  But, — to  bring  home  at  once  to  the  scene  of  its  most 
extensive  and  signal  results,  this  inherent  and  ever  work- 
ing principle  of  the  Reformation, — need  I  point  elsewhere 
than  to  my  own  coimtry,  Germany,  for  manifestations  of 

that  though  not,  perhaps,  the  author  of  the  Essay  in  question,  he  con- 
curred sufficiently  with  it,  in  spirit,  to  be  held  answerable  for  all  its 
heterodoxy. 

*  In  charging  the  Hoadlyan  scheme  of  the  Sacrament  with  Socian 
ianism,  the  Professor  but  echoes  the  language  of  one  of  the  few  Prelates 
of  the  Church  of  England,  who  have  thought  proper  to  declare  them- 
selves against  this  now  prevalent  opinion  among  the  members  of  the 
Establishment.  In  a  sermon,  preached  before  the  University  of  Ox- 
ford, the  late  Bishop  Cleaver,  after  impressing  upon  his  hearers  the 
intimate  connexion  which  subsists  between  the  importance  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  and  the  dignity  of  Christ's  nature,— insomuch  that  any 
depreciation  of  the  high  benefits  of  the  former  is,  in  effect,  a  denial  of 
the  divinity  of  the  latter,— proceeds  to  say  that  the  fame  acquired  in 
certain  quarters  by  Bishop  Hoadly's  plain  Account  of  the  SacTament 
was  "for  the  sake  of  its  connexion  with  Socinian  notions."1 

20 


(     230     ) 

its  activity  and  its  power;  can  we  ask  any  more  con- 
vincing proof  of  the  efficiency  of  that  one  simple  doctrine 
which  taught  that  the  Scriptures  are  to  be  interpreted 
according  to  the  light  of  Reason,  than  is  afforded  in  the 
deep,  radical,  and  all-pervading  change  which  it  has 
worked  throughout  the  whole  system  of  religious  belief  in 
Germany  !* 

"  Among  that  people,  who  once,  in  their  zeal  for  the  in- 
fallibility of  Scripture,  maintained  that  the  whole  of  it  had 
been  dictated  verbatim  by  the  Holy  Spirit,f — that  the 
very  Hebrew  points  and  accents  of  the  Old  Testament 
wTere  inspired,  and,  still  farther,  that  even  those  formularies 
and  Confessions  of  Faith,  every  line  of  which  teemed  with 
materials  for  wrangling,  were,  one  and  all,  suggested  by 
the  same  Heavenly  prompter, — among  that  very  people, 
so  vast  a  change  has  the  reasoning  principle  wrought,!. 


*  "  It  needed  not  be  added  (says  the  Rev.  Mr.  Rose,  Christian  Ad- 
vocate in  the  University  of  Cambridge)  that  the  Protestant  Church  of 
Germany  is  the  mere  shadow  ofaname.  For  this  abdication  of  Christianity 
was  not  confined  to  either  the  Lutheran  or  Calvinist  profession,  but  ex- 
tended its  baleful  and  withering  influence  with  equal  force  over  each.,r 
— Sermons. 

Similar  to  this  is  the  account  given  by  a  German  writer,  Baron 
Starke  : — "  Protestantism,"  he  says,  "  is  so  degenerated  that  little  more 
than  its  mere  name  subsists  at  the  present  day.  At  all  events,  it  must 
be  owned  it  has  undergone  so  many  changes,  that,  if  Luther  and  Me- 
lancthon  were  to  rise  again,  they  would  not  know  the  Church  which 
was  the  work  of  their  industry." — Entret.  Philosoph. 

f  "  Such  an  exaggerated  theory  of  inspiration  (says  Mr.  Pusey)  did 
undoubtedly  contribute  mainly  to  shake  in  Germany  the  belief  in  the 
doctrine  itself,  since  the  whole  seemed  to  depend  upon  this  faulty 
theological  system.  It  was  a  fancied  idea  of  expediency,  in  support  of  the 
main  Protestant  position  against  the  Romanists,  which  gave  rise  to  this 
system  among  them.  Deeply  have  their  descendants  to  regret  their 
short-sighted  policy." 

Thus  was  party-spirit  at  the  bottom  of  all,  during  the  first  struggles 
of  Protestantism.  Having  set  up  the  Bible,  as  their  sole  guide,  in  op- 
position to  the  Catholics,  to  uphold  its  entire  inspiration,  in  every 
word  and  syllable,  became  a  point  not  so  much  of  religion  as  of  honour 
with  the  party  ;  and  the  consequence  has  been,  according  to  the  or- 
dinary course  of  such  extremes,  that  the  descendants  of  those  very 
men  who  cried  up  the  Bible  as  every  thing,  have  now  succeeded,  as  we 
see,  in  degrading  the  Bible  to  almost  nothing. 

X  The  following  extract  from  the  Sermons  of  Mr.  Rose, — the  gentle- 
man to  whom  ^e  owe  our  first  full  insight  into  the  state  of  Protes- 
tantism in  Germany, — contains,  in  a  few  words,  such  a  general  view 
of  the  subject  as  may  save  me  the  trouble  of  referring  to  his  authority 
for  the  details:— "  The  rationalizing  Divines  of  Germany  are  bound 
by  no  law  but  their  own  fancies ;  some  are  more  and  some  less  ex- 
travagant ;  but  I  do  them  no  injustice  after  this  declaration  in  saying, 
that  the  general  inclination  and  tendency  of  their  opinions  (more 
or  less  forcibly  acted  on)  is  this,— that,  in  the  New  Testament  we  shall 


(     231     ) 

that  they  now  reject  all  supposition  of  inspiration  what- 
ever, and  regard  the  whole  of  the  Scriptures  themselves, 
from  beginning  to  end,  as  a  series  of  venerable,  but  hu- 
man, and,  therefore,  fallible  documents. 

"  In  that  same  country  whose  theologians  once  prized 
the  Old  Testament  as  an  equally  valuable  repository  of 
Christian  faith  with  the  New, — seeing  under  the  veil  of 
its  types  the  substance  of  the  Gospel,  and  in  its  prophe- 
cies an  inverted  history  of  the  mission  of  Christ* — in 
that  country  a  more  inquiring  and  discerning  theology 
has  now  severed  all  such  connexion  between  the  two 
codes.  Instead  of  finding  Christ  every  where  in  the  pages 
of  the  Old  Testament,  these  divines  (as  was  once  ob- 
jected to  Crotius  f)  find  him  no  where ; — the  prophecies 
hitherto  assumed  as  having  reference  to  the  Saviour,  be- 
ing meant  really  to  refer  to  the  future  state  of  the  Jews, 
and  having,  consequently,  no  farther  connexion  with 
Christ  than  as  accommodated  by  himself  and  others  to 
his  mission.  The  many  wonderful  instances  which  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures  record  of  the  direct  interposition  of 


find  only  the  opinions  of  Christ  and  the  Apostles  adapted  to  the  age  in 
which  they  lived,  and  not  eternal  truths;  that  Christ  himself  had 
neither  the  design,  nor  the  power  of  teaching  any  system  which  waa 
to  endure;  that,  when  he  taught  any  enduring  truth,  as  he  occasion- 
ally did,  it  was  without  being  aware  of  its  nature  ;  that  the  Apostles 
understood  still  less  of  real  religion  ;  that  the  whole  doctrine,  both  of 
Christ  and  his  Apostles,  as  it  is  directed  to  the  Jews  alone,  so  it  was 
gathered  in  fact  from  no  other  source  than  the  Jewish  Philosophy ; 
that  Christ  himselfjsrred  and  his  Apostles  spread  his  errors,  and  that, 
consequently,  no  one  of  his  doctrines  is  to  be  received  on  their  au- 
thority ;  but  that,  without  regard  to  the  authority  of  the  Books  of 
Scripture,  and  their  asserted  divine  origin,  each  doctrine  is  to  be  ex- 
amined according  to  the  principles  of  right  reason,  before  it  is  allowed 
to  be  divine." 

*  "  They  held,"  says  Mr.  Pusey,  in  speaking  of  those  former  theo- 
logians of  Germany,  "  that  all  the  distinguishing  doctrines  of  Chris- 
tianity were,  even  to  the  Jews,  as  much  revealed  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment as  in  the  New,  and  that  the  knowledge  of  these  doctrines  was 
a?  necessary  to  their  salvation  as  ours."  He  then  adds,  that  "No 
error  seems  to  have  prepared  so  much  for  the  subsequent  reaction,  in 
which  all  prophecy  was  discarded,  all  doctrine  considered  to  be  preca- 
rious. " — Historical  Inquiry. 

To  such  a  length  were  these  notions  carried  at  that  period  (about 
1640)  that  the  celebrated  Lutheran,  Calixtus,  was  accused  of  Arianism 
and  Judaism,  because  he  thought,  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was 
not  revealed  with  equal  clearness  in  the  Old  as  in  the  New  Testament ; 
nor  was,  under  the  old  dispensation,  as  necessary  to  salvation. 

|  It  was  said,  with  reference  to  their  different  modes  of  interpreta- 
tion, that  M  Cocceius  found  Christ  every  where  in  the  Old  Testament, 
and  Grotius  found  him  no  where." 


(     232     ) 

God  in  this  world,  are  no  longer  looked  upon  as  auglit 
but  Jewish  images  and  dreams :  those  historical  narra- 
tives, for  whose  truth,  and  even  verbal  accuracy,  the 
Holy  Spirit,  as  their  dictator,  used  formerly  to  be  held 
accountable,  are  now  explained  away,  as  allegories,  or 
rejected,  as  forgeries ;  and  even  that  most  important  of 
all,  on  whose  truth  so  much  of  Christianity  depends,  the 
Mosaic  History  of  the  Creation  and  Fall  of  Man,  has 
been  shown  to  bear  on  its  face  the  features  of  mythologic 
fiction.* 

"  While  thus  of  the  Old  Testament  our  views  have 
undergone  such  a  change,  some  of  our  illusions,  respect- 
ing the  New,  have  been  no  less  thoroughly  dissipated. 
The  notion,  indulged  in  so  fondly  by  our  ancestors,  not 
only  of  the  inspiration  of  the  whole  volume,  but  of  the 
uniform  purity  of  its  language,  throughout,  could  not 
stand  before  the  progress  of  an  improving  spirit  of  criti- 
cism ;  and,  accordingly, — imitating  rather  the  boldness  of 
Luther  himself  than  the  blind  homage  paid  by  his  Church 
to  every  syllable  of  Scripture, — our  Divines  have  dealt 
as  unceremoniously  with  most  parts  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment as  did  the  great, Reformer  himself  with  the  Epistle 
of  St.  James.  They  have  shown  that,  in  most  of  the 
Epistles,  gross  errors  and  interpolations  abound, — the 
latter  traceable  chiefly  to  about  the  beginning  of  the  se- 
cond century ;  while  not  only  the  Epistles  but  the  Gospel 
attributed  to  St.  John,  have  been  proved  by  Bretschneider 
to  have  been  the  productions  of  some  Gnostic  of  the  same 
period,  f 

"  Nor  is  this  all ;  for  even  the  trust-worthiness  of  the 
remaining  three  Gospels  has  been  called  seriously  into 
question  by  a  most  important  discovery  which  we  owe, 

*  On  this  point,  the  German  Divines  have  not  had  all  the  Ration- 
alism  to  themselves,  as  the  Rev.  author  of  the  "Free  Inquiry"  was 
even  beforehand  with  these  critics  in  ridiculing  the  notion  or  "  a  Ser- 
pent's speaking  and  reasoning."— See  MiddletoiV  s  Essay  on  this  subject, 
and  also  his  Letter  to  Dr.  Waterlavd. 

t  In  the  Preface  to  this  work,  Bretschneider  justifies  his  object  in 
writing  it,  both  by  the  example  of  Luther  and  the  principles  of  the 
Evangelical  Church.— "Earn  enim  judicn  libertatem  non  solum  anti- 
quissima  sibi  vindicavit  ecclesia,  sed  ea  quoque  usus  est  Lutherus, 
eademque  denique  principiisecclesise  evangelicffi  est  quam  convenient- 
issima."  Many  other  German  theologians,  besides  Bretschneider,  and, 
among  the  rest,  Cludius,  (Superintendent  of  the  Lutheran  Church,  at 
Hildesheim!)  have  taken  similar  views  as  to  tb.8  snuriousness  of  the 
writings  attributed  to  St.  John. 


(     233     ) 

in  the  first  instance,  to  the  sagacity  of  our  learned  Mi- 
chaelis,  hut  which  others,  since  his  time,  have  brought 
still  farther  into  light.  The  fact  proved,  as  it  appears, 
from  clear  internal  evidence,  by  these  critics,  is,  that  the 
Three  first  Gospels  are  not,  in  reality,  the  works  of  the 
writers  whose  names  they  bear,  but  merely  transcriptions 
or  translations  of  some  anterior  documents.*  To  the  proofs 
brought  by  our  Rationalists  of  this  fact,  there  has  been, 
as  yet,  no  satisfactory  answer  from  the  orthodox:  and 
thus  the  minds  of  all  thinking  Christians  are  left  to  the 
painful  doubt  whether  the  same  hands  that  copied  may 
not  also  have  interpolated,  and  whether  Protestants  may 
not  find  that  their  sole  guide  of  faith,  is,  after  all,  but  a 
dubious  and  fallible  dependence,  without  those  lights  of 
tradition,  by  which,  conjointly  with  the  Scriptures,  the 
Catholic  Church  has,  through  all  ages,  steered  her  course. 
We  know,/rom  undoubted  evidence,  that,  about  the  end 
of  the  second  Century,  both  the  forgery  of  new  Gospels 
and  the  adulteration  of  old  ones  prevailed  throughout  the 
Christian  world,  to  a  very  great  extent ;  and  the  latter 
species  of  fraud,  if  we  may  trust  their  mutual  accusations, 
was,  in  an  equal  degree,  practised  both  by  heretics  and 
by  the  orthodox ; — ■  Ego  Marcionis  adfirmo  adulteratum, 
(says  Tertullian)  Marcion  meum.' 

"  But,  however  ultimately,  the  question  respecting  the 
genuineness  of  these  documents  may  be  decided,  the  ra- 
tional mode  in  which  we  now  interpret  both  their  facts 
and  their  doctrines  completely  purges  them  of  nil  that 
fanaticism  and  mystery  from  which  Superstition  has  hith- 
erto drawn  her  chief  aliment ;  and  our  method  of  solving 
all  such  unsoundnesses  and  inconsistencies  in  doctrine, 
is,  like  most  methods  that  are  found  eificient  in  their 

*  By  Berthold,  one  of  those  critics  who  assert  the  existence  of  a 
■common  document,  it  is  maintained  that  this  original  of  the  three  first 
Gospels  was  written  in  Aramaic.  The  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  too, — as 
well  as,  indeed,  all  the  other  Epistles,— he  asserts,  in  like  manner,  to 
be  merely  translations  from  the  Aramaic ;  so  that,  as  an  able  writer 
in  the  British  Critic  has  remarked,  on  the  subject,  "  instead  of  the 
good  old-fashioned  notion  that  the  New  Testament  is  a  collection  of 
works  composed  by  the  persons  whose  names  they  bear,  and  who 
wrote  under  the  immediate  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  we  must 
now  believe  that  the  original  narrator  of  the  Gospel  History  was  an 
unknown  person  ;  and  that  the  Gospels  and  Epistles,  which  we  read 
in  Greek,  are  merely  translations  made  by  some  persons  whose  names 
are  lost,  and  who  betray  themselves  by  several  blunders  in  the  work 
which  they  undertook."— July,  1828. 

20* 


(    234    ) 

operation, simple.  It  being  admitted  that,  on  some  points,-— 
and,  among  others,  for  instance,  demoniacal  possessions, — 
Christ  accommodated  himself  to  the  prejudices  and  super- 
stition of  his  hearers,  we  think  it  warrantable,  wherever  his 
precepts  are  found  to  jar  with  sound  reason,  to  seek  in  the 
same  temporizing  policy  the  solution  of  such  difficulties. 

M  The  doctrinal  part  of  the  New  Testament  being  thus 
sifted  of  its  irrational ism ,  there  remained  but  the  task  of 
reconciling  to  the  laws  of  reason  and  nature,  those  devia- 
tions from  the  course  of  both  which  its  recorded  miracles 
present ;  and  this  not  very  easy  service  our  theologians 
have  attempted,  with  success  as  various  as  the  modes 
which  they  have  adopted  for  their  purpose, — sometimes 
resolving  the  whole  wonder  into  a  mere  exaggeration  of 
natural  phenomena;  sometimes  showing,  as  in  the  in- 
stance of  Jesus  walking  upon  the  sea,  that  to  a  preposi- 
tion, mistranslated,  the  entire  miracle  owes  its  origin  ;* 
and  sometimes  even  (as  was  the  case  in  the  time  of  Mes- 
rner's  celebrity)  attributing  the  wonderful  cures  per- 
formed by  Christ  to  the  effects  of  Animal  Magnetism. f 
In  short,  by  one  explanation  or  another,  all  that  is  mira- 
culous in  the  relations  of  the  New  Testament  has  been 
evaporated  away  effectually,  leaving  nothing  but  the 
mere  human  realities  behind. 

"  Thus,  of  all  that  imposing  apparatus  of  miracles, — 
which,  having  been  conjured  up  as  a  necessary  appendage 

• 

*  According  to  this  solution  of  the  miracle,  which  we  owe  to  a  Pro- 
fessor of  Theology,  Paulus,  the  words  Wl  tkv  S«X*cr<r2y  ^s£/r*TCuvr* 
are  to  be  translated  M  walking  by  the  sea,'1  instead  of  "  walking  on 
the  sea."  Plis  explanation  of'the  miracle  of  the  tribute-money  and 
the  fish  is  equally  worthy  of  a  Protestant  Professor.  "What  sort  of 
miracle  is  it,"  asks  Paulus,  "  which  is  commonly  found  here  ?  I  will 
not  say  a  miracle  of  about  16  or  20  groschen.  (2s.  6rf.)  for  the  greatness 
of  th.3  value  dors  not  make  the  greatness  of  the  miracle.  But  it  may 
be  observed,  that  as,  first,  Jesus  received,  in  general,  support  from 
many  person?  'Judas  kept  the  stock,  John  xii.  6.)  in  the  same  way  as 
the  Rabbis  lived  from  such  donations ;  as,  secondly,  so  many  pious 
women  provided  for  the  wants  of  Jesus;  as,  finally,  the  claim  did  not 
occur  at  any  remote  place,  but  at  Capernaum,  where  Christ  had 
friends,  a  miracle  for  about  a  dollar  would  certainly  have  been  super- 
fluous. '  For  a  farther  account  of  this  precious  Theologian,  see  Rose, 
{State  of  Pretest aviiim  in  Germany. 

t  In  speaking  of  the  enthusiasts  for  animal  magnetism,  who  went 
so  far  as  to  attribute  to  it  the  raising  of  the  apparition  of  Samuel  hy 
the  Pythoness,  the  Abbe  Gregoi re  says,  "Comme  les  neologues  Pro- 
testans,  ils  nppliquent  a.  d'autres  fahs  surnaturels  racontea  dans  la 
Bible  rette  thaumaturgie  medicaie  qui  tendroit  a  demolir  tout  !e 
plan  de  la  re  vela' ion." 


(     235     ) 

to  Christ's  Divinity,  should  now,  along  with  that  Divi- 
nity, he  suffered  to  pass  away, — the  only  one  that  still  re- 
tains a  hold  on  our  faith  is  the  great  miracle  of  the  Re- 
surrection, to  which,  in  despite  of  all  reasoning,  human 
nature  still  clings,  and  which,  therefore,  but  few  of  our 
theologians  have  yet  ventured  to  call  in  question.* 

"  Into  a  detail  of  the  various  doctrines,  reputed  hith- 
erto as  the  very  essence  of  Christianity,  which  have  al- 
ready fallen  before  the  all-conquering  march  of  Ration- 
alism, it  is  not  my  intention  here  to  enter.  Suffice  it  to 
say,  throughout  that  region, — including  Switzerland  f 
within  its  circle, — which  saw  the  birth,  the  triumphs,  the 
excesses  of  the  Reformation  ;  that  region,  where  intole- 
rance once  rioted  over  its  victims;  where  Pestelius  was 
condemned  to  death  by  the  lawyers  of  Wittenberg  for  no 
other  reason  than  that  he  differed  with  them  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  Eucharist;  where  Calvin  brought  Servetus  to 
the  stake,  and  the  Bernese  Reformers  beheaded  Gentilis, 
for  opinions  scarce  more  heterodox,  on  the  Trinity,  than 
those  of  Whiston  and  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke; — through  that 
whole  region,  not  only  the  Trinity,  but  every  doctrine  at 
all  connected  with  it,  the  superior  nature  of  Christ,  the 

*  Among  these,  is  Paulus,  who,  in  his  Commentary,  asserts,  that 
Christ  did  not  really  die,  but  suffered  a  fainting  fit.  One  of  the  fa- 
thers of  Rationalism,  Semler,  held  the  Resurrection  to  be  a  sort  of 
poetic  mythus,  which  was  to  be  received  in  some  moral  or  allegorical 
sense ;  and  YVegschneider  says,  that  though  Christ  seemed  to  the  by- 
standers to  expire,  yet,  after  a  few  hours,  being  given  up  to  the  sedu- 
lous care  of  his  friends,  he  returned  to  life  on  the  third  day. 

Mr.  Pusey  looks  upon  it  as  one  of  those  symptoms  of  a  returning 
reverence  for  Christianity  which  he  is  sanguine  enough  to  perceive  in 
the  present  state  of  the  Germans,  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Resurrection 
has  resumed  its  place  in  their  creed.  "  Many,"  he  says,  "  I  heard  of, 
others  I  saw  in  Germany,  who  had  formerly  been  cold  Rationalists,  but 
who  were  now  in  different  degrees  approximating  to  the  fulness  of 
Christianity.  From  the  stage  in  which  the  one  great  miracle  of  our 
Saviour's  Resurrection  was  held  as  the  basis  of  Christian  revelation, 
from  this  stage  onwards  there  was  progress. — Historical  Inquiry. 

f  "The  ministers  of  Geneva,"  says  a  Protestant  writer,  Grenus, 
"have  already  passed  the  unchangeable  barrier.  They  have  held  out 
the  hand  of  fellowship  to  Deists  and  to  the  enemies  of  the  faith.  They 
even  blush  to  make  mention,  in  their  Catechisms,  of  Original  Sin, 
without  which  the  Incarnation  of  the  Eternal  Word  is  no  longer  ne- 
cessary." 

Rousseau,  in  his  Lettres  de  la  Montagne,  gives  much  the  same  ac- 
count of  the  Genevese  of  his  own  timn  : — "  When  asked,"  he  says,  "  if 
Jesus  Christ  is  God,  they  do  not  dare  to  answer.    When  asked,  what 

mysteries  they  admit,  they  -still  do  not  dare  to  answer A 

philosopher  casts  upon  them  a  rapid  glance  and  penetrates  them  at 
once,— he  sees  Ui^y  are  Aiians,  Socinians." 


(     236     ) 

Personality  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Incarnation ,*  the 
Atonement  with  its  attendant  mysteries,  have  all,  by  the 
great  mass  of  Protestants,  of  all  denominations,  been  cast 
off,  as  fictions  and  absurdities,  from  their  creed. 

"  Finally, — to  close  and  crown  this  series  of  striking 
contrasts,  which  the  Germany  of  the  nineteenth  century 
presents  to  the  Germany  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth, 
— I  need  but  point  to  the  extraordinary  coalition  which 
has,  within  these  few  years,  taken  place  between  the  two 
principal  ereeds  into  which  the  Reformation  in  its  first 
progress,  branched.  Of  all  Churches,  perhaps,  that  ever 
existed,  the  most  fiercely  intolerant  has  been  the  Lu- 
theran,!— not  only  in  persecuting,  imprisoning,  and  even 
excluding  from  salvation,  as  heretics,!  the  members  of 
her  sister  Church,  the  Reformed  or  Calvinist,  but  also  in 
nurturing  within  her  own  bosom  such  a  nest  of  discord  § 
as  had  never  before  been  engendered  by  theologic  hate, 
— Ultra  Lutherans,  and  Melancthonians  refusing  each 

*  We  find  clear  work  made  of  all  these  mysteries  by  a  German  di- 
vine, Cannabich,  who,  in  a  "  Review  of  the  ancient  and  new  Dogmas 
of  the  Christian  Faith,"  coolly  sets  aside  the  Trinity.  Original  Sin,  Jus- 
tification, the  Satisfaction  of  Christ,  Baptism,  and  the  Lord's  Supper, 
as  taught  in  his  own  Church.  This  levelling  divine,  (who  held  one  of 
the  highest  dignities  in  the  Lutheran  Church)  thus  speaks  of  the  Tri- 
nity : — •'  The  dogma  of  the  Trinity  may  be  removed,  without  scruple, 
from  religious  instruction,  as  being  a  new  doctrine,  without  founda- 
tion and  contrary  to  reason  ;  but  it  must  be  done  with  great  circum- 
spection, that  weak  Christians  may  not  take  scandal  at  it,  or  a  pie- 
text  to  reject  all  religion!" 

f  "  De  toutes  les  sectes  du  Christianisme,"  says  Rousseau,  with  just 
severity,  "  la  Lutherienne  me  paroit  la  plus  inconsequente.  Elle  a 
reuni  comme  a  plaisir  contre  elle  seule  toutes  les  objections qu'elles  se 
font  Tune  a  I'autre.  Elle  est  en  particulier  intolerante  comme  l*Egli«e 
Romaine;  mais  le  grand  argument  de  celle-ci  lui  manque;  elle  est  in- 
tolerante sans  savoir  pourquoi." — Lettres  de  la  Montague. 

\  Thus,  a  learned  Professor,  Fecht,  in  a  work, ,l  De  Beatitudine  Mor- 
tuorum  in  Domino,"  expressed  his  opinion  that  all  but  Lutherans,  and 
certainly  all  the  Reformed,  were  excluded  from  salvation.  But  to  Lu- 
therans he  asserted  that  the  term  "  der  Selige,"  or  ;-  died  in  the  Lord," 
ought  in  all  cases  to  be  applied,  even  though  they  had  led  notoriously 
ungodly  and  profligate  lives,  and  on  their  death-beds  had  not  given 
the  least  indication  of  repentance. — See  Mr.  Pusey' s  Historical  Inquiry ; 

§  Among  the  instances  of  Lutherans  persecuted  by  Lutherans,  1  shall 
only  enumerate  Strigel,  imprisoned  three  years  for  maintaining  that 
man  was  not  merely  passive  in  the  work  of  his  conversion, — Harden- 
berg,  deposed  and  banished  from  Saxony  for  only  approximating  to  the 
Reformed  doctrines  on  the  Communion,— Peucer,  Mel ancthon's  son- 
in-law,  imprisoned  ten  years,  for  espousing  the  cause  of  his  father-in- 
law's  followers,  and  Cracau,  put  to  the  torture  for  the  same  Anti-Lu- 
tlieran  offence. 


(     237     ) 

other  the  rites  of  communion  and  burial,* — Flacianists 
against  Strigelians, — Osiandrians  against  Stancarians,f — 
each  of  these  parties  hating  its  opposite  as  inveterately 
as  all  agreed  in  detesting  their  common  enemy  the  Cal- 
vinists.  Yet  this  very  Church,  born,  as  it  was,  and  nursed 
in  discord,  till  strife  seemed  the  very  element,  the  prin- 
ple,  of  its  existence,  has,  within  these  few  years  (thanks 
to  the  becalming  power  of  Rationalism)  sunk  quietly  into 
coalition  with  its  ancient  foe,  and  now  shares  amicably 
with  it  the  same  temples,  the  same  ministers,  and  the 
same  Sacraments !} 

"  To  the  Eternal  glory  of  reason,  the  world  now  be- 
holds the  edifying  spectacle  of  two  religions  once  so  mu- 
tually hostile,  that  each  would  have  freely  granted  salva- 
tion to  be  attainable  any  where  but  within  the  hated  pale 
of  the  other,  now  quiescently  subsiding  into  a  partnership 
of  belief, — with  creeds  simplified,  it  is  true,  on  both  sides, 
to  so  rational  an  extent,  as  to  leave  them,  even  were  they 
so  disposed,  but  few  dogmas  to  dispute  about, J  and  with 

*  The  origin  of  this  controversy  was  the  extravagant  assertion  of 
Flacius,  that  "original  sin  was  the  substance  of  human  nature." 

f  By  Osiander  it  was  maintained, that  our  justification  through  Christ 
was  derived  from  his  divine  nature  solely,  while  Stancarus  ascribed 
the  work  of  justification  to  his  human  nature  alone.  Thus  did  these 
"  graceless  bigots  fight :"  for  ever  in  extremes,  and  for  ever  in  the  dark. 

X  One  of  the  compromises  by  which  this  strange  union  has  been  ef- 
fected is  not  a  little  curious.  The  Lutherans  had  been  accustomed, 
like  the  Catholics,  to  use  a  small  wafer,  whole;  the  Calvinists  bread, 
which  they  broke.  They  now  use,  in  common,  a  large  Lutheran  wafer, 
which  is  broken,  like  the  Calvinistic  bread. 

We  have  here  a  type,  if  I  may  so  say,  of  the  fate  of  German  Protes- 
tantism altogether.  It  was  respecting  the  substance  in  the  Eucharist 
that  these  churches  first  fell  into  variance,  and  now  a  mere  compro- 
mise as  to  the  wafer  has  been  sufficient  to  bring  them  together  again ! 
Well  might,  the  Abbe  de  la  Mennais  say,  "  Le  Protestantisme  fatigue 
s'est  endormi  sur  des  mines" 

§  As  a  confirmation  of  all  that  is  here  stated  by  the  Professor,  I  give 
the  following  passage  from  an  English  traveller,  Mr.  Jacob,  who,  in 
speaking  of  the  reconciliation  in  question  says,  "This  union  is  said 
to  have  spread  still  wider  a  spirit  of  indifference  upon  sacred  subjects. 
The  distinguishing  tenet  of  the  Lutherans,  and  that  which  is  con- 
tained in  their  Symbolic  Books,  to  which  the  clergy  profess  adherence, 
is  the  doctrine  ol  the  real  presence  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  in 
the  bread  and  wine,  in  the  Lord's  Supper.  This  tenet,  though  it  has 
been  ever  the  profession  of  the  Lutheran  Church,  has  been  long  aban- 
doned by  almost  the  whole  of  its  ministers.  The  Reformed,  or  Cal- 
vinistic ministers,  had,  like  their  brethren  of  the  Lutheran  party,  lit- 
tle to  give  up.  Their  distinguishing  tenets  of  predestination,  election, 
perseverance,  and  impelling  grace,  were  passed  over  in  their  public 
services,  as  obsolete  dogmas  never  to  be  introduced,  and  it  was  gene* 
/ally  understood  that,  for  a  century  past,  they  have  been  scarcely  en- 


(     238     ) 

that  best  and  sole  guard  against  dissension  and  craft,  a 
freedom  from  all  dark  and  uncharitable  mysteries. 

"To  Zwingli  who,  both  by  the  example  and  the  rule 
which  he  held  out  in  applying  the  touch-stone  of  common 
sense  to  the  mystery  of  the  Eucharist,  was  the  main 
source,  I  again  repeat,  of  all  the  consequences  I  have 
been  describing,  we  are  indebted  for  other  bold  lights,  in 
the  same  adventurous  track,  which  would  yet  more  fully 
illustrate  the  working  of  his  principle,  but  to  which  the 
extent  this  Lecture  already  has  reached  permits  me 
barely  to  allude.  The  gloomy  dogma  of  Original  Sin, — 
an  evident  craft  from  Manicheism,- — was  among  the  doc- 
trines discarded  by  this  enlightened  Reformer,*  who,  in 
rejecting  the  notion  that  Baptism  washes  away  sin,  de- 
nied that  there  is  any  original  sin  to  wash  away.  As  on 
the  existence,  too,  of  this  innate  corruption  depends  the 
necessity  of  a  Redemption,  we  can  little  wonder  at  his 
adopting  a  scheme  of  salvation  so  comprehensive,  that, 
according  to  his  view,  the  great  heroes  and  sages  of  Pa- 
ganism are  no  less  admissible  to  the  glories  of  Heaven 
than  St.  Paul  himself.  In  his  Confession  of  Faith  ad- 
dressed, but  a  short  time  before  his  death,  to  Francis  I., 
not  content  with  assuring  that  monarch  that  he  might  ex- 
pect to  meet,  in  the  assembly  of  the  Blessed,  such  illus- 
trious ancients  as  Socrates,  the  Scipios,  the  Catcs,  grouped, 
side  by  side,  with  Moses,  Isaiah,  and  the  Virgin  Mary, 
he  announces  also,  as  part  of  the  company,  the  demigods 
Hercules  and  Thesus,  and  at  the  head  of  all  places  Adam 
and  Jesus  Christ  himself. 

"  I  have  already  intimated  that,  during  his  life-time, 
some  suspicion  attached  to  Zwingli  of  being  less  ortho- 
dox, on  the  subject  of  the  Trinity,  than  were  most  of  his 
brother  Reformers  ;f  and  though  he  succeeded,  as  we  are 

tertained  by  any  considerable  number  of  the  clergy;  so  that  the  union 
which  has  been  effected  is  not  imagined  to  have  had  any  other  practi- 
cal effect,  but  that  of  making  the  common  people  think  religious  wor- 
ship, under  any  form,  as  much  a  matter  of  indifference  as  this  union, 
thus  easily  effected,  shows  that  different  opinions  are  to  their  teachers." 

*  He  held  it  to  be  a  misfortune,  a  malady  of  man's  nature, — not  sin, 
nor  incurring  the  penjity  of  damnation.  "  Colligimus  emo  peccatum 
oriirinale  morbum  quidem  esse,  qui  tamen  per  se  non  culpabilis  est, 
nee  damnationis  poBnam  inferre  potest." — Tractat.  de  Baptism. 

t  Calvin,  too,  was  accused  of  heterodoxy,  on  this  subject,  by  the  Lu- 
therans ;  and  a  book  was  published  by  Hutter,  one  of  their  most  vio- 
lent divines,  to  prove  that  Calvin  "  had  corrupted,  in  a  detestable 
manner,  the  most  illustrious  passages  and  testimonies  in  the  Holy 


(     230     ) 

told,  in  vindicating  himself,  on  this  point,  to  Luther,  I  am 
inclined  to  believe,  from  the  little  ceremony  with  which, 
in  so  solemn  a  document,  he  classes  the  Saviour  undis- 
tinguishingly  with  all  this  motley  group  of  saints  and  de- 
migods, that  the  suspicion  of  his  heterodoxy,  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Christ's  divinity,  was  not  without  foundation.  In 
truth,  to  a  mind  far  less  penetrating  than  that  of  Zwin* 
gli  it  could  not  fail  to  have  been  self-evident  that  the 
very  same  motive  and  principle  on  which  he  had  act- 
ed in  explaining  away  transubstantiation,  namely,  that 
all  which  is  unintelligible  should  be  held  to  be  incredi- 
ble, would  lead,  with  equal  certainty,  to  the  overturn  of 
the  no  less  inexplicable  enigma  of  the  Trinity.  It  wTas 
on  these  grounds  that  the  latter  doctrine  was  attacked 
afterwards  so  successfully  by  Socinus;  and  the  two  strong- 
holds of  mystery  having  thus  fallen  before  the  summons 
of  Reason,  all  those  other  inroads  into  the  ancient  terri- 
tory of  Faith,  which  it  has  been  my  object  to  point  out  to 
you,  have  followed  naturally  in  succession/' 

CHAPTER  XLVI. 

Reflections. — Letter  from  Miss  *  *  .—Marriages  of  the  Reformers.— 
CEcolampadius.— Bucer.— Calvin  and  liis'Idoletta. — Luther  and  his 
Catherine  de  Bore. — Their  Marriage  Supper. —Hypocrisy  of  the  Re- 
formers.— Challenge  at  the  Black  Bear.— The  War  of  the  Sacrament. 

Those  among  my  readers  to  whom,  from  their  previous 
unacquaintance  with  the  subject,  the  picture  that  has 

Scriptures,  relating  to  the  most  glorious  Trinity,  to  the  Godhead  of 
Christ,  and  the  Holy  Spirit." 

The  grounds  of  this  charge  against  Calvin,  are  to  be  found  in  the 
view  taken  by  that  Reformer  of  some  of  those  prophecies  and  types  of 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  which  are,  by  most  Christians,  regarded  as 
having  reference  to  Christ,  but  which  Calvin,  anticipating  the  system 
of  the  Rationalists,  applied  solely  to  the  temporal  condition  and  pros- 
pects of  the  Jews.  In  noticing  this  mode  of  interpretation,  (which  Pro- 
fessor Scratchenbach  might  have  cited,  among  his  instances  of  the  ra- 
tionalizing spirit  of  Protestantism)  Mosheim  thus  speaks: — •'  It  must, 
however,  be  observed  that  some  of  these  interpreters,  and  more  espe- 
cially Calvin,  have  been  sharply  censured  for  applying  to  the  temporal 
state  and  circumstances  of  the  Jews,  several  prophecies  that  point  to 
the  Messiah,  and  to  the  Christian  dispensation  in  the  most  evident 
manner;  thus  removing  some  of  the  most  striking  arguments  in  favour  of 
the  divinity  of  the  QospcV 


(    240     } 

just  been  given  of  the  present  state  of  Protestantism  in 
Germany,  comes  with  the  same  shock  of  novelty  as  it 
did,  I  confess,  to  myself,  can  alone  form  any  adequate  no- 
tion of  the  wonder,  the  incredulity,  with  which  I  listened 
to  that  summing  up  of  the  Protestants'  creed  of  unbelief 
(as  it  is  hardly  a  solecism  to  call  it,)  which  has  been  re- 
ported faithfully,  as  it  fell  from  my  instructor's  own  lips, 
in  the  concluding  portion  of  his  Lecture. 

I  had,  it  is  true,  been  sufficiently  prepared  by  my  know- 
ledge of  the  earlier  heresies, — those  elder  branches  of  the 
dark  family  of  Simon  Magus,  the  Valentinians,  Marcion- 
itcs,  &c, — to  expect  all  possible  freaks  of  belief  from  a 
free,  uncontrolled  range  of  Reason  through  the  Scrip- 
tures. But  that  I  should  find  zmbelief  resulting,  to  such 
an  extent,  from  the  same  license  of  private  judgment, 
was,  though  an  equally  natural  consequence,  by  no  means 
so  clearly  foreseen  by  me ;  nor  could  I  help  now  recalling 
to  mind  the  remark  of  a  clever  Protestant  writer,— a  re- 
mark which,  when  first  I  happened  to  light  upon  it,  struck 
me  as  bordering  on  the  extravagant,  but  to  whose  truth 
the  fate  that  has  attended  Christianity,  in  the  very  fa- 
ther-land of  the  Reformation,  bears  but  too  awful  a  testi- 
mony,— namely,  that  "  the  first  step  of  separation  from 
the  Church  of  Rome,  was  the  first  step  to  infidelity."* 

So  incredible,  however,  did  some  of  the  details  of  this 
new  negative  code  of  Christianity  appear  to  me,  that  I 
resolved  to  satisfy  myself,  by  direct  reference  to  some 
of  the  Professor's  authorities,  as  to  how  far  dependence 
might  be  placed  on  his  very  startling  statements.  With 
this  view,  declining,  for  a  time,  the  honour  of  any  farther 
lectures  from  him,  I  applied  myself  sedulously  to  the 
study  of  all  such  Rationalist  writers  as  were  likely  to  aid 
me  in  forming  a  judgment  respecting  the  nature  of  their 
system. 

In  this  task,  however,  I  was,  before  long,  interrupted 
by  a  letter  from  Miss  *  *,  in  which,  mixing  up,  as  usual, 
sentiment  and  theology  together,  she  entreated,  as  a  spe- 

*  Extracts  from  the  Diary  of  a  Lover  of  Literature.— The  intelligent 
author  of  this  work,  Mr.  Green,  lived  in  habits  of  intimacy  with 
some  of  the  most  eminent  men  of  the  last  half  century.  It  is  in  speak- 
ing of  Dryden's  poem  of  "  The  Hind  and  Panther,"  that  he  says,  "  His 
Hind  demonstrates — what  I  have  often  thought,  but  tremble  to  ex- 
press—that the  first  step  of  reparation  from  the  Church  of  Rome,  wis 
ths  first  to  infidelity." 


(     241     ) 

cial  favour,  that  I  would  collect,  for  her  Album,  all  such 
particulars  as  were  on  record,  respecting  "  those  heaven- 
favoured  women,  who,  in  the  first  dawn  of  the  Reforma- 
tion,  enjoyed  the  enviable  distinction  of  being  the  wives 
of  Reformers,  and  thus  participating  in  the  affection  and 
sweetening  the  toils  of  the  first  labourers  in  that  great 
and  most  goodly  vineyard." 

Though  my  own  romance  on  the  subject  had  conside- 
rably abated,  I  lost  no  time  in  performing,  to  the  best  of 
my  ability,  this  commission  of  my  fair  friend,  whose  ex- 
ceeding zeal  in  all  matters  of  theology,  (whatever  might 
be  her  knowledge  of  them,)  entitled  her  fully  to  the  eu- 
logy passed  by  Boussuet  on  a  learned  Religieuse  of  his 
time :  "  II  y  a  bien  de  la  theologie  sous  la  robe  de  cette 
femme." 

Beginning  with  (Ecolampadius,  the  early  friend  of 
Erasmus,*  who  was  the  first  priest  that  took  advantage  of 
that  era  of  liberty  to  provide  himself  with  the  lay  luxury 
of  a  handsome  young  wife,  I  proceeded  regularly  through 
the  list  of  all  those  who  were  induced  to  follow  in  so  in- 
viting a  path.  "  (Ecolampadius,"  says  Erasmus,  in  one 
of  his  letters,  "  has  taken  to  himself  a  wife — a  pretty 
young  girl :  he  wants,  I  suppose,  to  mortify  himself.  Some 
call  Lutheranism  a  tragedy ;  but  I  call  it  a  comedy,  where 
the  distress  generally  ends  in  a  wedding." 

Even  the  stern  Calvin  was  not  proof  against  this  "  prim- 
rose path  of  dalliance ;"  but,  on  the  death  of  one  M.  de 
Bure,  an  Anabaptist,  whom  he  had  converted,  kindly  fol- 
lowed up  this  spiritual  service  by  espousing  his  widow,  f 

Martin  Bucer,  who  had  been  originally  a  Dominican 
friar,  no  sooner  cast  off  his  frock  than  he  set  about  mar- 
rying, like  the  rest, — "  et  meme  plus  que  les  autres," 
says  Bossuet,  as  it  was  the  friar's  good  fortune  to  become 
the  husband  of  no  less  than  three  ladies  in  succession ; 
one  of  whom  (still  more  to  heighten  the  zest  of  wrong) 
had  been  a  nun.j:     This  extreme  readiness  to  marry, — 

*  For  the  share  which  Erasmus  was  supposed  to  have  taken  in  pre- 
paring the  way  for  the  Reformation,  the  Lutherans  acknowledged 
their  gratitude,  by  having  a  picture  painted  "in  which  Luther  and 
Hutten  were  represented  carrying  the  ark  of  God  and  Erasmus  dancing 
before  them  with  all  his  might."— Critique  de  VJifol.  (TErasvte,  quoted 
by  Jortin. 

t  The  name  of  this  lady  was  Idoletta. 

X  The  nun  is  said  to  have  borne  him  thirteen  children.    "  Cent  etc 

21 


(     24-2     ) 

more  especially  on  the  part  of  ecclesiastic  proselytes, — 
was  regarded  as  a  proof  of  heartiness  in  the  cause  of  re- 
ligious reform ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  any  antiquated 
scruple  at  the  thoughts  of  violating  the  most  solemn  vows, 
was  held  in  suspicion,  as  a  symptom  of  still  lurking  Po- 
pery.* 

With  this  sort  of  evidence  of  good  Protestantism,  Mar- 
tin Bucer  was,  as  we  have  seen,  amply  provided  ;  and  one 
of  his  wives  had  been  even  more  of  a  pluralist,  in  matri- 
mony^ than  himself.  By  a  singular  run  of  good  luck,  too, 
this  lady's  marriages  lay  all  in  the  Reforming  line; — her 
first  husband  having  been  Ludovicus  Cellarius;  her  se- 
cond, the  famous  CEcolampadius,  who  had  been  a  Brigit- 
tine  monk ;  her  third,  Wolfgang  Capito,  one  of  the  most 
active  of  the  Reformers;  and  her  fourth,  the  Dominican 
friar,  and  helping  Apostle  of  the  English  Reformation, 
Martin  Bucer.  Knowing  that  the  career  of  this  fair  pro- 
moter of  Protestantism  would  be  sure  to  interest  my 
friend,  Miss  *  *,  exceedingly,  I  took  care  to  set  it  forth 
as  much  in  detail  as  my  materials  would  allow  of;  point- 
ing out  particularly  to  her  notice  the  sentimental  inci- 
dent of  CEcolampadius,  widow  becoming  also,  in  succes- 
sion, the  widow  of  his  two  most  esteemed  colleagues,  Ca- 
pito and  Bucer. 

Nor  was  the  liberality  of  these  Reformers,  respecting 
marriage,  confined  solely  to  their  own  particular  cases, 
but  extended  even  more  indulgently  to  the  matiimonial 
propensities  of  others:  and  while  three  wives  in  succes- 
sion were  deemed  by  Bucer  a  sufficient  privilege  for  him- 
self, he  allowed  to  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  in  considera- 
tion of  his  great  services  to  Protestantism,  the  right, 
somewhat  less  customary  among  Christians,  of  having 
two  wives  at  a  time.  The  Memorial  addressed  by  this 
Prince  to  the  Reformers,  stating  his  reasons  for  requiring 

dommage  (says  Bayle)  qu'une  fille  si  propre  a  multiplier  fiit  restee 
dans  le  couvent." 

*  M  Ce  que  M.  de  Meaux  observe  qu'en  ce  tems-la  le  marriage  etoit 
une  recommendation  dans  le  parti,  n'est  pas  entitlement  faux;  car  il 
est  certain  qu'im  ecclesiastique,  qui  ne  se  seroit  point  marie,  eiit  fait 
naitre  des  soup^ons  qu'il  n'avait  pas  renonce  au  dogme  de  la  loi  du 
Celibat.  Je  crois  que  Bucer  insinua  cette  raison  a  Calvin  lorsqu'il  le 
pressa  de  se  marier." — Bayle.  So  much  was  this  the  case  at  that  pe- 
riod, that  the  visiters  appointed  in  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Sixth  ex- 
horted all  ecclesiastics  to  marry,  as  a  sure  sign  of  their  abjuration  of 
Popery. 


(     24li     ) 

such  a  luxury,  and  the  Dispensation  granted,  in  conse- 
quence, signed  by  Luther,  Melancthon,  and  Bucer*  in 
which  they  allow  to  this  great  patron  of  their  faith  the 
additional  wife  he  requires,  form  together  as  curious  spe- 
cimens of  the  mdrality  of  a  religion  of  reason  as  an  in- 
quirer into  the  history  of  such  creeds  could  desire. 

But  the  great  hero  and  heroine  of  my  "  Loves  of  the 
Reformers,"  were  the  mighty  Martin  himself  and  his  fair 
Catherine  de  Bore.  Commencing  from  the  memorable 
Good  Friday,  when  this  lady,  with  eight  other  nuns,  es- 
caped,, under  the  care  of  Leonard  Koppen,  from  her  con- 
vent,! showed  how  early  Luther  evinced  that  strong  in- 
terest in  her  fate  which  led  eventually  to  their  union. 
For,  not  only  did  he  defend  Koppen's  achievement,  in 
carrying  off  the  nine  nuns,  but  even  compared  it  J  to  that 
of  Christ  himself,  in  carrying  away  the  Saints  captive  to 
Satan. 

In  tracing  the  history  of  the  destined  wife  of  Luther 
through  the  interval  between  this  elopement  and  her 
marriage,  I  took  care  to  avoid  even  an  allusion  to  any  of 
those  scandalous,  and,  as  it  would  seem,  false  stories  re- 


*  He  assured  them  that  a  second  wife  was  quite  necessary  to  his 
conscience,  and  that  he  would  thereby  be  enabled  "to  live  and  die 
more  gaily  for  the  cause  of  the  Gospel!" 

In  Bossuet  (liv.  6.)  and  Bayle  (art.  Luther)  the  reader  will  find  all 
the  particulars  of  this  most  disgraceful  transaction,  which,  from  the 
secrecy  with  which  it  was  managed  by  the  parties,  remained  for  a  long 
period  unknown,  till,  allast,  the  publication  of  the  curious  documents 
connected  with  it,  by  the  Elector  Palatine,  Charles  Lewis,  revealed 
the  whole  to  the  world.  The  motives  of  the  three  leading  Reformers 
concerned  in  it  for  this  most  profligate  concession  are  thus  shrewdly 
touched  on  by  Bayle;  who,  after  giving  some  extracts  from  the  Land- 
grave's Memorial,  or  instruction;  continues,  "  II  joignit  a  tout  cela  je 
ne  sai  quelles  menaces  et  quellcs  promcsscs.  qui  donnerent  a  penscr  a  ses 
Casuistes;  car  il  y  a  beaucoupd:apparence  que  si  un  simple gentilhomme 
les  eut  consultts  sur  un  pareil  fait  il  n'eut  rien  obtenu  d'eux.  On  pent 
done  s'iraagffter  raisonnablement  qu'ilsfiirent  depetitefoi:  ilsn'eurent 
pas  la  con fiance  qu'ils  dcroicnt  avoir  aux  pramesses  de  Jesui  Christ;  ils 
craiirnirent  que  si  la  Reformation  d'Allemagne  n'etoit  soutenue  par 
les  Princes  qui  en  faisoient  profession,  elle  ne  fut  etoufTee." 

f  The  example  of  these  nuns  was  followed  by  another  batch,  con- 
sisting of  double  The  number,  who,  soon  after,  made  their  escape  from 
the  Monastery  of  Wedersteten. 

X  It  is  but  fair  to  say.  that  the  reporter  of  this  blasphemy  is  Coch. 
lams,  who.  from  his  exceeding  violence  against  Luther,  must  be  re- 
garded as  rather  suspicious  testimony.  The  following  are  the  words 
in  this  writer:—1'  Felicem  raptorem  sicut  Christus  raptor  eratin  mum 

do   quando  per  mortem  suam .  .  et  quidem  opportunissimo 

tempore  in  Pascha  quo  Christus  suorum  quoque  captivam  duxit  can= 
tivau-ni." 


(     244     ) 

lated  by  Maimbourg,  Varillas,  and  others,  respecting  her 
conduct  among  the  young  students  of  Wittenberg.  The 
curious  circumstances,  however,  leading  immediately  to 
the  marriage,  I  was  enabled  to  give  authentically  as 
stated  in  those  MSS.  left  by  Luther's  friend,  Amsdorf,  to 
which  Seckendorf  had  access.  From  these  it  appears  that 
Miss  Catherine  had,  in  a  conversation  with  Amsdorf, 
complained  that  it  was  Luther's  intention  to  marry  her, 
against  her  will,  to  Doctor  Glacius.  She,  therefore, 
begged  of  Amsdorf,  knowing  on  what  intimate  terms  he 
lived  with  Luther,  to  try  and  prevail  upon  his  friend  to 
choose  some  other  husband  for  her ;  adding,  that  she  was 
ready,  at  a  minute's  notice,  to  marry  either  Amsdorf  or 
Luther  himself,  but  on  no  account,  Doctor  Glacius.* 

On  this  hint  the  Great  Reformer  spake ;  and,  with  a 
rapidity  unexampled,  (as  if  the.  vows  pledged  to  keep 
them  asunder  but  made  them  more  impatient  to  come  to- 
gether)— Miss  Catherine  de  Bore  became,  almost  on  the 
instant,  Madame  Luther.  Without  a  single  hint  of  the 
matter  to  any  of  his  friends,  he  invited  a  party  to  supper, 
consisting  of  the  bride,  a  priest,  a  lawyer,  and  a  painter, — 
the  last  attending  professionally,  as  well  as  the  others, 
being  summoned  to  take  the  fair  Catherine's  portrait, f — 
and  in  this  apostolical  manner  was  solemnized  a  marriage, 
which,  for  a  time,  filled  the  ranks  of  Protestantism  with 
dismay. 

The  deep  concern  of  his  friend,  Melancthon,  at  this 


*  Venit  Catherina  ad  Nicolaum  Amsdorffium,  conqueriturque  se  de 
consilio  LutheriD.GIacio  contra  volunt  a  tern  suam  nuptiis  locandam: 
scire  se  Lutherum  familiarissime  uti  Amsdorffio;  itaque  rogare  ad 
quaevis  alia  consilia  Lutherum  vocet.  Vellet  Lutherus,  vellet  Ams- 
dorffius  se  paratam  cum  alterutro  honestum  inire  matrimonium, — cum 
D.  Glacio  nullo  modo. — Seckendorf.  Comment,  de  Lutheranismo. 

This  whole  plan  does  much  credit  to  the  ingenuity  of  Miss  Catherine, 
who  was  already  well  aware  how  much  Luther  admired  her.  There 
had,  indeed,  from  the  display  and  notoriety  of  the  Reformer's  fondness 
for  her,  arisen  rumours  not  very  creditable  to  either  of  the  parties. 
To  these  rumours  he  himself  alludes,  in  one  of  his  letters:—"  Os  ob- 
struxi,"  he  says,  "  infamantibus  me  cum  Catherina  Borana; — and  his 
warm  advocate,  Seckendorf,  states  without  any  reserve,  that  "  he  had 
wished  exceedingly  for  the  girl,  and  used  to  call  her  his  Catherine:" — 
1  Optime  enim  cupiebat  virgini  et  suam  vocare  Catherinam  solebat." 

t  The  name  of  this  painter  was  Carnachius,  and  an  engraving  from 
the  best  of  his  portraits  of  Catherine,  was  prefixed  by  M.  Mayer,  to  his 
Dissertation  "  de  Catherina,  Lutheri  Conjuge,"  for  the  express  purpose 
of  clearing  Luther  from  the  imputation  of  having  married  a  pretty 
woman . 


(     245     ) 

unseasonable  event — his  own  consciousness  of  the  shame 
and  humiliation  he  had  incurred,  by  a  step,  which,  as  he 
himself  bitterly  said,  would,  he  hoped,  "  make  angels 
laugh  and  all  the  devils  weep,"* — the  reaction  that  fol- 
lowed so  closely  upon  this  feeling  of  degradation,  and  the 
violent  effort  by  which,  regaining  his  own  esteem,  he 
soon  succeeded  in  persuading  himself  that,  after  all,  the 
ringer  of  Providence  was  manifest  in  the  wdiole  affair, 
and  it  was  "God  himself  that  had  suggested  to  him  to 
marry  that  nun,  Catherine  de  Bore  "f — all  these  various 
struggles  between  conscience  and  passion  afforded  me 
.scope  for  such  alternations  of  light  and  shadow,  as,  in  the 
Memoir  of  a  wedded  Monk  and  Nun,  could  not  fail  to  be 
turned  strikingly  to  account. 

To  give  a  domestic  interest,  too,  to  the  story,  I  took 
care  to  mix  up  with  it  a  number  of  conjugal  details,  show- 
ing how  happily,  through  all  the  war  of  creeds,  this  holy 
menage  went  on,  and  how  much  attached  to  his  "  girl," 
as  he  fondly  called  her,]:  the  great  Reformer  continued  to 
the  last.  With  her,  indeed,  was  always  associated  in  his 
mind  whatever  he  considered  most  precious  and  sacred ; 
nor  could  he,  more  satisfactorily  to  himself  express  his 
ardent  admiration  of  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 
(his  favourite  portion  of  all  Scripture)  than  by  saying  that 
"  he  had  wedded  himself  to  that  Epistle,  and  that  it  was 
his  Catherine  de  Bore." 5 

The  reader  has  by  this  time,  I  trust,  come  to  know  me 
somewhat  too  well  to  suppose  that,  light  as  may  have 
been  the  tone  in  which  I  dwelt  on  these  details,  I  was  at 
all  insensible  to  their  true  and  gross  nature,  or  could  feel 


*  Sic  me  vileni  et  coh tempt um  his  nuptiis  feci,  ut  angeios  ridere  et 
omnes  dEemones  flere  sperem. — Epist.  ad  Spalat. 

t  Dominus  me  subito  aliaque  cogitantem  conjecit  mire  in  covjugium  cum 
Catherina  Borensi  moniali  ilia. — Epist.  ad  Winces.  Line.  Even  Me> 
lancthon,  too,  brought  himself  to  think  (or,  at  least,  to  say)  that  it  was 
possible  there  might  be  "something  hidden  and  divine1'  under  this 
marriage: — "  Isto  enim  sub  negotio  fortasse  aliquid  occulti  et  quid- 
dam  divinius  subest!"— Epist.  ad  Camerar.  Can  infatuation  or  hypo- 
crisy—for it  must  be  one  or  the  other— go  farther? 

%  In  boasting  that  the  "  wise  men  "  of  his  party  who  were  so  angry 
at  his  marriage,  had  been  themselves  forced  to  acknowledge  the  finger 
of  God  in  the  event,  he  thus  expresses  himself :— Vehementer  irritan- 
tur  sapientes  inter  nostros:  rem  coguntur  Dei  fateri.  sed  persona?  larva 
tam  mese  quam  puellce  illos  dementat. — Lutheri  Epist.  ap  Seckend. 

§  Epistola  ad  Galatas  est  mea  Epistola  cui  me  despondi— est  mea. 
Catherina  de  Bora. 

21* 


(     246     ) 

otherwise  than  deeply  disgusted  at  the  scenes  of  vulgar 
self-indulgence  and  nauseous  hypocrisy  which  this  whole 
drama,  to  a  near  observer  of  the  chief  actors  in  it,  exhi- 
bits. It  was,  indeed,  with  some  difficulty,  I  contrived  to 
hide,  under  a  thin  surface  of  pleasantry,  (such  as  any 
other  eyes  than  those  of  my  learned  instructress  would 
have  seen  through,)  the  feeling  of  loathing  with  which  I 
traced  these  mock  Evangelists  through  their  career, — 
with  which  I  followed  them  to  their  homes,  and  through 
all  their  haunts  and  habits,  and  saw  them  come  flushed 
from  their  "  Table-talk,''  and  their  thrice-transmitted 
wives,  to  tread  down,  like  dogs  and  swine,  the  "holy 
things,"  and  "  pearls  "  of  the  Faith. 

The  historian  Hume  has  truly  characterized  the  first 
Reformers  as  "fanatics"  and  "bigots,"  but  with  no  less 
justice  might  he  have  added,  that  they  were  (with  one  ex- 
ception, perhaps,*)  the  coarsest  hypocrites  ;|  men,  who, 
while  professing  the  most  high-flown  sanctity  in  their 
writings,  were,  in  their  conduct,  brutal,  selfish,  and  un- 
restrainable ;  who,  though  pretending,  in  matters  of  faith, 
to  adopt  reason  as  their  guide,  were,  in  all  things  else, 
the  slaves  of  the  most  vulgar  superstition  ;  and  who,  with 
the  boasted  right  of  judgment  for  ever  on  their  lips,  passed 
their  lives  in  a  course  of  mutual  crimination  and  persecu- 
tion, and  transmitted  the  same  warfare  as  an  heir-loom  to 

*  The  one  exception  here  made  by  my  friend  can  be  no  other,  of 
course,  than  Melancthon;  yet,  it  would  be  difficult,  on  considering  the 
career  of  this  amiable,  but  most  irresolute  man,  to  acquit  him  wholly 
of,  at  least,  the  duplicity  of  disguising  his  true  opinions  and  lending 
the  sanction  of  his  countenance  to  measures  which  he  disapproved. 
The  sole  circumstance  of  his  upholding,  in  public,  as  correct  docu- 
ments of  faith,  both  the  Confession  andlhe  Apology,  which  he  yet,  in 
his  private  letters,  mourns  over,  as  containing  errors  and  obscurities 
which  it  was  most  essential  to  amend,  is,  in  itself,  so  culpable  a  sacri- 
fice to  the  headlong  spirit  of  party  as  nothing  but  the  remorse  which 
he  himself  felt  for  it  can  at  all  palliate  or  atone.  It  is  true,  his  position 
was  most  trying  ;  and  but  too  aptly  did  he  compare  himself  to  "  Daniel 
among  the  lions,"  as  never  was  gentle  spirit  surrounded  by  such  un- 
congenial associates.  But  his  approval  of  the  atrocious  crime  of  the 
burning  of  Servetus — how  is  this  to  be  palliated?  It  was  but  in  cha- 
racter for  such  men  as  Bucer  and  Farel  to  demand  that  the  doubter  of 
the  Trinity  should  'have  his  bowels  pulled  out,"  should  "die  ten 
thousand  deaths  ;"— but  Melancthon! 

t  To  this  charge  Bucer  himself,  the  most  hypocritical  of  the  whole 
band,  pleaded  guilty.  In  a  letter  written  to  Calvin,  during  the  victo- 
rious career  of  Charles  V.,  he  says,  tl  God  has  punished  us  for  the  injury 
which  we  have  done  to  his  name,  by  our  long  and  most  mischievous  hypo- 
crisy:' 


(     247     ) 

their  descendants.  Yet,  "  These  be  thy  gods,"  oh,  Pro- 
testantism ! — these  the  coarse  idols,  which  Heresy  has  set 
up  in  the  niches  of  the  Saints  and  Fathers  of  old,  and 
whose  names,  like  those  of  all  former  such  idols,*  are 
worn,  like  brands,  upon  the  foreheads  of  their  worship- 
pers. 

How  any  Protestant  that  has  ever  examined,  even  but 
slightly,  into  the  disgraceful  history  of  that  long  series 
of  wranglings,  equivocations  and  frauds,  which  the  at- 
tempt to  understand,  or  rather  to  mystify,  each  other, 
on  the  one  single  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist,  gave  rise  to 
among  the  Reformers,  can  be  content  to  have  received 
his  faith,  at  the  hands  of  innovators  at  once  so  double- 
dealing  and  so  clumsy,  is  to  me  a  marvel  unspeakable. 
The  very  commencement  of  this  Sacramentarian  warfare 
resembled  far  more  the  preliminaries  of  a  horse-race  than 
the  solemn  preparation  for  a  controversy  by  which  the 
faith  of  millions  yet  unborn  was  to  be  influenced.  "  I  defy 
you,"  said  Luther,  haughtily,  to  Carlostadt,  "to  write 
against  me  on  the  Real  Presence;  and  will  even  give 
you  this  gold  florin,  if  you  will  undertake  to  do  so."  In 
saying  thus,  Luther  took  from  his  pocket  a  florin,  which 
Carlostadt  accepted  and  deposited  in  his  own.  They  then 
shook  hands  on  the  challenge,  and  swallowing  down  a 
bumper  to  each  other's  healths,  the  War  of  the  Sacra- 
ment was  thus,  in  the  true  German  style,  declared.f 

The  scene  of  this  memorable  interview  was  at  the 
Black  Bear,  where  Luther  lodged ;  and  in  such  manner 
was  it  that  the  ineffable  and  adorable  Mystery,  which  the 
Saints  of  other  days  knelt  to,  as  "the  hidden  Manna"  of 
salvation,  "  the  wisdom  of  God  in  a  mystery,"  was  start- 
ed, as  fit  game  to  be  hunted  down,  by  this  pair  of  chal- 
lengers at  the  Black  Bear ! 

*  From  the  very  beginning  of  the  Christian  church  this  adoption  of 
names  derived  from  men, — such  as  Marcionites,  Arians,  Donatists, 
Lutherans,  Calvinists,  &c  has  invariably  been  the  badge  of  heretical 
strife  and  schism;  some  saying  that  they  are  of  Paul,  others  that  they 
are  of  Apollos,  and  others  that  they  are  of  Cephas.  4l  The  Apostles," 
says  Ephrem  of  Edessa,  "  gave  no  names;  and  when  it  is  done,  there 
is  a  departure  from  their  rule." 

How  aptly  may  the  words  of  St.  Augustine  to  the  Donatists  be  ap- 
plied by  a  Catholic  of  the  present  day  to  that  swarm  of  Calvinists,  Ar- 
minians,  Socinians,  &c.  who  are  opposed  to  him: — "  /  am  called  Ca- 
tholic; you  are  with  Donatus" — Ego  Catholica  dicor  et  vos  de  Donati 
parte. — Psalm,  contra  part.  Donati. 

t  Luther.  T.  2.  Jen.  447.  Calix.  Judic.  n.  49,  Hospin.  2  par.  ad  ann, 
1524.    See  note  at  the  end  of  the  volume, 


(  »»  ) 

So  much  for  the  decency  of  those  new  apostles  of  Chris- 
tianity;— for  their  consistency,  tolerance,  good  faith,  and 
wisdom,  let  the  whole  history  of  that  most  disreputable 
controversy  speak.  In  the  very  first  attempt  of  tne  Lu- 
therans at  a  regular  Confession  of  Faith,  no  less  than  six 
different  explanations  of  their  doctrine  respecting  the  Eu- 
charist (each  announced  as  positively  for  the  last  time  of 
explaining)  followed  in  quick  succession:  while  the  coun- 
ter explanations  on  the  Sacramentarian  side,  were  almost 
equally  numerous. 

Then  came  the  wily  and  tortuous  Bucer,  as  a  mediator 
between  the  parties, — a  mediator,  by  affecting  to  agree 
with  both, — a  reconciler,  by  misrepresenting  each  to  the 
other;  now  inducing  Luther  to  think  that  Calvin  con- 
curred in  a  Real  Presence  of  Christ's  body,  while  CaL 
vin  meant  but  some  vague  presence  to  the  eye  of  faith, 
and  in  the  sky;  now  persuading  Calvin  that  Luther  ad^ 
mitted  the  substance  present  to  be  spiritual,  while,  on 
the  contrary,  Luther  held,  as  do  the  Catholics,  that  the 
miraculous  presence  in  the  Sacrament  is  spiritual  only  as 
to  the  manner,  but  corporeal  as  to  the  substance. 

By  such  tricks  and  evasions  did  Bucer, — and,  it  is  pain^ 
ful  to  add,   Melancthon, — succeed  in  maintaining,  for  a 
time,  a  false  and  feverish  truce  between  the  parties.    But 
arts  so  gross  could  not  long  continue  to  deceive ;  all  com- 
promise was  found  to  be  hollow  and  hopeless,  and,  at  last, 
the  three  great  Eucharistic  factions,  the  Lutheran,  the 
Calvinistic,  and  Zwinglian,  all  broke  loose  in  their  re- 
spective directions  of  heresy,-^each  branch  again  sub- 
dividing itself  into  new  factions  distinctions,  under  the 
countless  names  of  Panarii,  Accidentarii,  Corporarii,  Ar- 
rabonarii,  Tropistse,  Metamorphists?,  Iseariotistao,  Schwen- 
kenfeldians,  &c.  &c.  &e. — till,  to  such  an  extent  did  the 
caprice  of  Private  Judgment  carry  its  freaks,  on  this  one 
solemn  subject,  that  an  author  of  Bellarmine's  time  (as 
that  great  man  informs  us)  counted  no  less  than  two  hun- 
dred different  opinions  on  the  words,  "  This  is  my  body!" 
But  the  whole  history  of  that  period  abounds  with  les- 
sons full  of  melancholy  warning;  nor  can  anything  more 
strikingly  impress  us  with  the  infatuation  or  ignorance  of 
those  persons  who  still  cry  out  for  "the  Bible,  the  whole 
Bible,  and  nothing  but  the  Bible,"  than  thus  to  see  that 
the  very  men  who  first  raised  that  cry,  and  who  held  the 


(     249     ) 

Bible  to  bo  all-sufficient  for  the  discovery  of  divine  truth, 
could  yet  fall  into  all  this  fierce  and  interminable  discord 
about  the  meaning  of  a  text  consisting  but  of  four  simple 
words ! 

CHAPTER  XLVII. 

Blasphemies  of  the  Rationalists. — Sources  of  infidelity  in  Germany.— 
Absurdity  of  some  of  the  Lutheran  doctrines.— Impiety  of  those  of 
Calvin.— Contempt  for  the  authority  of  the  Fathers.— Doctor  Dam- 
man.— Decline  of  Calvinism. 

It  required  no  very  long  or  deep  study  of  the  chief 
oracles  of  Rationalism  to  convince  me  fully  that,  in  the 
Professor's  description  of  the  present  awful  state  of  Pro- 
testantism in  Germany,  he  had  by  no  means  exaggerated 
or  over-coloured  his  picture.  On  the  contrary,  I  foand 
that  his  statements,  however  incredible  they  had  at  first 
appeared,  were  but  a  faint  and  diluted  representation  of 
the  truth ;  and  that,  while,  from  the  fear  perhaps  of  giving 
alarm  to  so  mere  a  neophyte  in  the  school  of  Rationalism, 
he  concealed  from  me  more  than  half  of  the  impieties  of 
the  system,  he  had  also,  for  the  honour  of  his  supreme 
sovereign,  Reason,  thrown  a  veil  over  all  its  feebleness 
and  its  folly. 

Had  I  wanted  any  thing,  indeed,  to  prove,  to  my  fullest 
conviction,  how  wholly  misplaced  is  reasoning,  on  a  sub- 
ject where,  if  feeling  and  faith  be  not  alive,  all  else  is 
"  of  the  earth,  earthy,"  I  should  have  found  it  in  the  piti- 
ful exhibition  which  these  men,  otherwise  so  acute  and 
learned,  afford  in  their  attempts  to  bring  down  the  grand 
and  awful  wonders  of  Christianity  to  the  level  of  their 
own  finite  and  low-thoughted  reason;  nor  between  the 
example  which  they  present  of  irreverent  boldness,  on 
such  subjects,  and  the  most  stupid  and  superstitious  ac- 
quiescence under  belief,  is  there  much  more  to  choose 
than  between  the  ass  of  the  Egyptians,  carrying  gravely 
the  Mysteries,  and  the  same  ass,  in  a  fit  of  liveliness, 
trampling  them  clumsily  under  his  feet. 

With  the  more  plausible  features  of  that  mere  phan- 
tom of  Christianity,  which  still  wears  the  abused  name 


(     250     ) 

of  Protestantism,  in  Germany,  the  reader  already  has  be- 
come acquainted  from  the  sketch  given  of  its  rise  and 
progress  by  M.  Scratchenbach ;  and,  to  go  into  details  of 
the  profane  excess  to  which  the  system  has  been  carried, 
would  be  a  task,  even  had  I  left  myself  space  for  it,  nei- 
ther agreeable  nor  useful.  To  give  some  notion,  how- 
ever, of  the  tricks,  in  the  way  of  theology  and  exegesis, 
which  Fancy,  under  the  demure  mask  of  Reason,  can 
play,  I  shall  here  string  together,  at  hazard,  a  few  of  the 
leading  results  at  which  these  inquirers  into  "the  Bible, 
the  whole  Bible,  and  nothing  but  the  Bible,"  have  ar- 
rived. 

In  the  Old  Testament,  the  history  of  the  Creation,  of 
Paradise,  and  of  Adam  and  Eve,  are  nothing  but  allegories 
or  mythi.  The  Pentateuch,  which  may  be  looked  upon 
as  a  sort  of  "  Theocratic  Epic,"  was  not  written  by  Moses, 
but  compiled  at  a  much  later  period ;  and  Jehovah  was 
but  the  Household  God,  or  Fetiche,  of  the  family  of  Abra- 
ham, which  David,  Solomon  and  the  prophets  afterwards 
promoted  to  the  rank  of  Creator  of  all  things.  It  is  plain 
that  Deuteronomy  could  not  have  been  the  work  of  Moses, 
nor  Ecclesiastes  that  of  Solomon,  as,  in  each  case,  it 
would  suppose  the  author  to  have  related  his  own  decease. 
The  Psalms  were  a  sort  of  Anthology  to  which  David  and 
other  writers  contributed ;  and  the  productions  of  the  chief 
contributor  are  thus  criticised  by  a  grave  theologian, 
Augusti:  "David's  Muse  takes  no  high  flight,  but  he 
succeeds  best  in  Songs  and  Elegies."  By  critics  of  the 
same  school  Esther  is  pronounced  to  be  an  Historical  Ro- 
mance, while  Ruth,  they  say,  was  written  for  the  pur- 
pose of  proving  David  to  have  sprung  from  a  good  family, 
and  the  story  of  Jonah  is  but  a  repetition  of  the  fable  of 
Hercules  swallowed  by  a  sea-monster.  As  to  the  Pro- 
phets, the  learned  Eichorn  allows  them  the  credit  of 
having  been  sharp,  clever  men,  who  saw  farther  into 
futurity  than  their  contemporaries ;  while  others,  assign- 
ing to  them  a  decided  political  character,  "make  them 
out,"  says  Mr.  Rose,  "  to  be  demagogues  and  Radical 
Reformers."  The  Prophecy,  in  Isaiah,  of  the  Fall  of 
Babylon,  was  evidently  written  by  some  one  who  was 
present  at  the  siege ;  and  the  predictions,  supposed  to 
refer  to  Christ,  in  the  same  rhapsodies,  relate  to  the 


(     251     ) 

fortunes  and  ultimate  fate  of  the  race  t)f  Prophets  in  ge- 
neral.* 

In  the  New  Testament,  the  miraculous  birth  of  Christ 
is  to  be  ranked  in  the  class  of  mythologic  fictions,  along 
with  the  stories  of  the  incarnations  of  the  Indian  gods, — 
and  more  especially  that  of  Buddha's  generation  from  a 
Virgin  who  had  conceived  him  by  a  rainbow.  The  mo- 
tive of  Christ  for  giving  himself  out  for  a  Prophet  was 
that  he  might  thereby  have  more  weight,  as  a  moral 
teacher;  and,  in  like  manner,  he  was  induced,  afterwards 
to  personate  the  Messiahf  from  the  notion  entertained  by 
his  admirers  that  he  was  that  promised  personage.  Ac- 
cording to  Wieland,  Jesus  Christ  was  a  noble  Jewish 
magician,^  who  on  his  own  part,  never  conceived  the 
least  idea  of  being  the  founder  of  a  Religion,  and  whose 
Institute  only  assumed  the  form  of  religion  by  time. 
Much  of  the  obscurity,  it  is  said,  in  which  the  doctrines 
of  the  New  Testament  are  involved  is  owing  to  the  stu- 
pidity and  superstition  of  the  Apostles,  who  misunderstood, 
in  many  instances,  the  language  of  their  master, §  and 
whose  gross  misconception  of  his  promises,  as  to  a  future 
kingdom,  involved  him  in  difficulties  with  his  followers, 
from  which  he  saw  no  other  way  of  extricating  himself 
honourably  but  by  death.  || 


*  "  There  is  a  book  by  Scherer  (a  clergyman  in  Hessee  Darmstadt,) 
in  which  he  represents  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament  as  so  many 
Indian  jugglers,  who  made  use  of  the  pretended  inspiration  of  Moses 
and  the  revelations  of  the  prophets  to  deceive  the  people."— Rose's  State 
of  Protestantism  in  Germany. 

|  Jesum  personam  Messise  suscepisse. — De  Wette. 

I  A  Prussian  Rationalist  has  even  improved  (in  the  retrograde  di- 
rection) upon  this  notion  of  Wieland.  "  II  existe  (says  Stapfer)  un  livre 
publie  en  Prusse,  dans  des  intentions  pieuses,  et  dont  le  titre  dit  plus 
que  les  plus  longs  devellopemens  historiques  ne  pourroient  apprendre 
a  ceux  qui  aiment  a  douter  encore  de  l'empire  des  opinions  llation- 
alistes  en  Allemagne  ;  la  voici. — Jesus  Christ  fut-il  autre  chose  qu'un 
simple  rabbin  de  campagne  Juif?"     Archives  du  Christianisme. 

§  Etsi  enim  Apostolorum,  innocentiam,  integritatem,  pietatem,  fer- 
vorem  et  evSouo-icLcrjAcv  ea,  qua  par  est,  veneratione  agnoscimus,  dis- 
simulare'tamen  non  possumus  fuisseeos  non  solum  variis  superstiti- 
onibus  et  falsis  opinionibus  imbutos,  sed  tamen  indocilesquoque et  tar- 
dos,  ut  si  Jesus  paulo  obscuriore  loquendi  genere  uteretur,  eum  pror- 
sus  non  intelligerent. — De  Wette,  de  Morte  Jesu  Christi  Expiatoria. 

||  Voluit  Jesus,  veterum  prophetarum  more,  morte  suadoctrinse  veri- 
tatem  profiteri,  sperans  fore  ut  difficultatibus  quibus,  se  vivo,  pressam 
videbat,  morte  sua  superatis,  victric  tamen  illaevaderet,  et  vanis  Mes- 
siie  opinionibus  destructus,  in  hominum  animos  vim  suam  salutarcm 
exsereret.— Dc  W'ettc. 


(     252     ) 

It  is  painful  thus  to  repeat, — even  for  the  purpose  of  de* 
nouncing  them, — profanations  and  blasphemies  at  once  so 
daring  and  so  frivolous.  But  a  Reverend  Protestant  has 
not  shrunk  from  recording  them  in  his  pages,  and  a 
Catholic  has,  at  least,  one  less  reason  for  being  ashamed 
of  them 

The  original  source  of  all  this  flood  of  irreligion  by 
which  Protestantism  has  been  swept  away  in  Germanyf 
and  even  Christianity  herself  seen  her  "  foundations  over- 
flown," has,  in  the  foregoing  lecture  of  my  German  in- 
structor, been  clearly  and  irrefragably  pointed  out ;  nor 
is  he  a  less  valuable  authority  for  the  true  source  of  the 
evil,  because  by  a  perversion  of  moral  vision,  he  regards 
it  as  a  good,  and,  in  the  false  pride  of  Illuminatism,  even 
glories  in  results,  over  which  every  thinking  Christian, 
of  all  sects,  must  mourn. 

In  one  respect  only  can  the  view  taken  by  the  Pro- 
fessor of  the  causes  of  this  great  religious  revolution  be 
considered  partial  or  imperfect.  In  the  wish  to  claim  for 
his  favourite  Zwingli  the  whole  honour,  as  he  deems  itr 
of  having,  by  the  principle  which  he  first  applied  to  the 
interpretation  of  Scripture,  led  the  way  in  this  desecrating 
and  unchristianizing  system,  he  has  failed  to  do  justice  to 
the  share  which  both  Luther  and  Calvin  contributed,  in 
their  several  ways,  to  the  same  lamentable  result ;  nor, 
in  showing  how  Zwingli  set  the  example  of  undermining 
Christianity  by  the  anti-mysterious  and  naturalizing  cast 
of  his  doctrines,  has  sufficiently  pointed  out  how  his 
brethren  of  Geneva  and  Wittenberg  conduced  exactly 
to  the  same  end  by  the  absurdity  of  theirs. 

We  have  already  seen  how  revolting  were  some  of 
those  notions  of  Luther  which,  adopted,  as  they  were,  in 
all  the  wantonness  of  self-will,  by  himself  descended 
afterwards,  under  the  abused  name  of  doctrines,  to  his 


In  considering  what  was  the  particular  reading  adopted  by  Christ 
of  a  passage  in  Daniel  which  he  accommodated  to  himself,  this  writer 
coolly  discusses  our  Saviour's  qualifications,  for  the  task  of  interpreting 
the  Old  Testament,— saying  that,  though  he  could  not  of  course,  be  ex- 
pected to  know  the  new  Grammatico-histohcal  mode  of  interpreta- 
tion, still  it  was  impossible  he  could  be  so  neglectful  of  the  true  mean- 
ing of  the  passage  as  to  understand  it  in  the  manner  attributed  to  him : 
— "  Is  enim  in  fectione  Vet.  Testamenti,  licet  nostra  exegeseos  gram- 
matico-historicae  rudis,  contextus  tamen  non  adeo  negligens  se  potuir, 
ut  locum,  &c.  &c." 


(     253     ) 

Church.  Of  one  of  these,  the  Ubiquity  of  the  human  nature 
of  Christ,  an  extravagance  that  has  no  parallel  in  the  whole 
range  of  Gnosticism, — its  author  himself  had,  towards  the 
close  of  his  life,  seen  reason  to  be  ashamed;  and,  with  his 
usual  caprice,  as  well  in  dictating  as  in  countermanding 
doctrines,  had,  in  some  of  his  later  writings,  wholly 
abandoned  the  notion.  Already,  however,  had  his  name 
hallowed  even  this  nonsense  to  his  followers; — the 
Ubiquity  had  become  a  part  and  parcel  of  Lutheranism, 
and,  as  such,  was  to  be  maintained  and  wrangled  for  with 
the  rest. 

It  was,  in  fact,  not  as  articles  of  belief,  but  as  badges  of 
party,  that  any  of  these  monstrous  extravagancies  were 
clung  to  so  obstinately.  Torn  up,  as  was  the  Lutheran 
Church,  into  a  multiplicity  of  schism,  every  such  dictum 
of  their  founder  became  the  Shibboleth  of  a  faction,  and 
the  more  inconceivably  absurd  was  its  nature,  the  more 
desperate  the  fidelity  with  which  it  was  defended.  That 
this  is  no  unfair  or  distorted  representation  of  that  Church, 
the  pages  of  Mr.  Pusey, — the  historian,  as  he  may  be 
called,  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  German  Protestantism, 
— but  too  sufficiently  testify.  It  is  only  surprising,  in- 
deed, that  the  reaction,  in  favour  of  insulted  reason,  to 
which,  at  last,  this  war  of  wordy  sectarianism  gave  rise, 
did  not  much  earlier  take  place,  and  most  lamentable  that 
they  who,  disgusted  with  this  abuse  of  the  name  of  reli- 
gion, rejected  the  motley  creed  from  whence  such  dis- 
cord sprung,  did  not  seek  refuge  at  once  in  the  haven  of 
the  ancient  Church  of  Christ,  whose  "  peace  is  as  a  river," 
instead  of  breaking  off,  it  is  to  be  feared,  irrecoverably, 
into  the  vague  void  of  Unbelief, — that  sea  without  a 
shore ! 

The  course  of  the  Calvinistic  branch  of  Protestantism 
in  Germany  was,  in  many  respects,  different  from  that  of 
the  Lutheran.  Owing  to  their  freedom,  for  a  longer  pe- 
riod, from  fixed  formularies  of  doctrine,  there  existed  in 
their  Church  a  far  more  comprehensive  scheme  of  com- 
munion than  among  the  Lutherans;  and  having  less, 
therefore,  of  the  exclusive  spirit  of  formularism  in  their 
theology,  they  were  proportionally  more  tolerant.  They 
had,  indeed,  a  spectacle  for  ever  before  them,  in  the  ra- 
bid rancour  of  the  sister  Church  towards  themselves, 
which,  though  insulting  and  irritating,  was,  for  the  most 

22 


(     254     ) 

part,  by  its  outrageous  absurdity,  far  more  calculated  to 
inspire  disgust  than  any  desire  to  retaliate.  Such  an 
amiable  direction  had  the  family  feeling  between  these 
two  heresies  taken  that,  by  Lutheran  preachers,  the  title 
of  Antichrist  was  transferred  from  the  Pope  to  Calvin, 
and  in  Lutheran  liturgies  one  of  the  petitions  was,  "  Re- 
press the  Turks,  Papists,  and  Calvinists."* 

But  though  it  may  be  granted  that  the  Reformed  Church, 
as  compared  with  the  Lutheran,  set  an  example  far  more 
becoming  a  Christian  community,  there  was,  on  the  other 
hand,  in  its  whole  spirit  and  principles,  even  more  deeply 
laid  mischief,  and  a  still  more  unerring  source  of  such 
demoralizing  and  Antichristian  consequences  as  we  see 
exhibited  in  the  present  state  of  continental  Protestant- 
ism. Not  to  dwell  farther  on  that  rule  of  scriptural  in- 
terpretation, so  pliant  for  all  purposes,  which  Calvin, 
alike  with  Zwingli  and  Socinus  adopted,  and  which  places 
the  meaning  of  God's  word  at  the  mercy  of  man's  sense, 
the  very  foundation  of  the  creed  of  Calvinism  involves 
notions  of  a  Supreme  Being  the  most  disturbing,  if  not 
fatal  to  all  genuine  piety.  If,  as  Hooker  declares,  "  the 
seed  of  whatever  perfect  virtue  groweth  from  us  is  a 
right  opinion  touching  things  divine,"  alas  for  the  growth 
of  virtue  or  charity  in  those  who  seek  their  model  of 
"  things  divine"  in  the  God  of  the  Calvinists, — the  deli- 
berate pre-ordainer  of  sin  and  ruin, — the  Author  of  man's 
existence,  temptation,  and  fall! 

That  most  ancient  and  most  melancholy  of  all  myste- 
ries, the  Origin  of  Evil,  must,  as  long  as  man  suffers  and 
thinks,  continue  to  occupy,  however  needlessly,  his  mind. 
But  to  attempt  to  conjure  up  doctrine  out  of  such  a  "  mist 
of  darkness," — to  speculate  on  the  unrevealed  decrees  of 
God,  and  look  for  light  where  Himself  ha3  willed  there 
should  be  none,  is  a  task  presumptuous  as  it  is  shadowy, 
vain  as  it  is  daring;  and  which,  by  mixing  up  the  specu- 
lations of  philosophy  with  religion,  introduces  an  element 
into  the  latter  which  never  fails  to  explode,  to  its  ruin. 
So  aware  were  the  Gnostics,  in  the  midst  of  all  their  re- 

*  "In  Swedish  Pomerania,  where  there  were  no  reformed,  an  order 
from  the  local  authorities,  suspending  declamations  against  them,  and 
erasing  from  the  Liturgy  the  petition,  'Repress  the  Turks,  Papists, 
and  Calvinists,'  was  annulled  by  application  to  Stockholm;  and  the 
intermarriage  of  a  Lutheran  with  a  Reformed  declared  inadmissible." 
—Pusey,  Historical  Inquiry. 


(     255     ) 

veries,  of  the  danger  of  holding  forth  a  Supreme  God  as 
the  author  of  evil,  that  they  had  recourse  to  the  supposi- 
tion of  an  inferior  and  malevolent  Deity,  on  whom  to  rest 
all  the  responsibility  of  that  mass  of  moral  evil  which 
the  more  impious  Calvinist  traces  up  to  the  one  God  him- 
self! 

Nor  is  it  merely  in  the  rash  impiety  of  this  doctrine 
that  its  mischief  to  the  cause  of  Christianity  lay,  but  also 
in  the  contempt  for  Christianity's  earliest  teachers  which 
Calvin's  adoption  of  it  implied;  he  himself  having  avowed 
that,  on  this  point,  the  Fathers  of  the  three  first  centuries 
were  opposed  to  him,  and  his  more  violent  followers,  Go- 
marus  and  others,  even  admitting  that  they  were  unsup- 
ported in  it  by  Scripture. 

The  whole  history,  indeed,  of  the  Predestinarian  doc- 
trine, from  its  first  introduction  by  St.  Augustine,  is  a 
subject  well  worthy  of  study,  as  enabling  us  to  track  the 
course  of  so  dark  an  error,  through  all  the  stages  of  its 
progress,  growing  more  and  more  bloated  and  virulent  as 
it  advances,  till,  at  last,  bursting  w7ith  its  own  venom,  it 
gradually  dies  away.  Such,  very  nearly,  has  been  the 
course  and  fate  of  the  dark  doctrine  of  Calvinism.  Be- 
ginning, in  a  comparatively  mild  form  with  St  Augus- 
tine,— who  himself  had  commenced  with  far  other  opi- 
nions, and  was  only  led  by  the  heat  of  controversy  to  lay 
the  foundations  of  Calvinism,* — it  assumed,  in  the  scheme 
of  the  Genevese  Reformer,  a  more  rigid  and  damnatory 
shape;  received  some  gloomier  touches  from  his  follow- 
ers, Beza  and  Zanchius,  and  from  thence  on,  deepening 
still  its  hue,  as  it  passed  through  the  hands  of  the  fierce 
Francker  divines,  reached  the  full  consummation  of  its 
blasphemy  and  absurdity,  under  the  auspices  of  the  well- 
named  Doctor  Dam-man^  at  the  memorable  Synod  of 
Dort. 

*  When  St.  Augustine  opposed  the  Manichaeans  (who  held,  with 
the  Calvinists,  that  there  are  souls  necessarily  wicked,)  he  advanced 
doctrines  wholly  different  from  those  which  he  afterwards  took  up  in 
opposition  to  Pelagius;  and  this  latter  party  opinion  has  been  his  he? 
quest  to  future  times  ; — inflicting  thereby  an  injury  on  Christianity  (for 
even  the  Catholic  Church  did  not  wholly  escape  the  infection)  far  great- 
er than  all  his  labours  in  her  service  can  ever  compensate.  In  reject? 
ing  Jansenism— an  innoculation  of  this  virus — from  her  Communion, 
the  Church  of  Rome  has  got  rid  of  the  only  slight  taint  of  heresy  that, 
in  her  course,  "immortal  and  unchanged,"  the  Milk  white  Hind  has 
ever  known. 

t  This  Dr.  Pamman  was  one  of  the  secretaries  to  the  Synod,  and 


(     256     ) 

At  that  point,  however,  the  glory  of  Calvinism  may  be 
said  to  have  touched  its  meridian,  and  the  moment  of 
complete  triumph  was  but  its  first  step  towards  decline. 
Even  the  Dutch,  whose  divines  had  principally  contri- 
buted to  this  victory  over  common  sense,  refused,  in  most 
instances,  to  submit  to  the  yoke  of  the  victors;  and,  with 
that  nimbleness  which  has  ever  characterized  the  Pro- 
teus, Protestantism,  were  seen  gliding  away  from  the 
grasp  of  orthodoxy  in  the  various  forms  of  Universalists, 
Semi-Universalists,  Supralapsarians,  Sublapsarians, — like 
that  model  of  the  reforming  spirit,  to  which  I  have  just 
alluded, — 

Nee  te  decipiat  centum  mentita  figuras, 

Sed  preme  quicquid  erit;  dum  quodfuit  ante,  Reformet. 

In  Geneva,  the  very  cradle  of  all  those  monstrous  doc- 
trines which  had  been  now  decided,  by  the  Maccoviuses 
and  Dammans,*  to  be  the  true  Christian  and  Protes- 
tant faith,  that  reaction  which  has  since  developed  it- 
self so  signally,  began  already  to  appear;  and  the  same 
recoil  from  fanaticism  and  absurdity  which  made  her  then 
almost  Arminian,  has  since,  in  its  farther  and  natural 
operation,  made  her  all  but  infidel. 

of  course  an  upholder  of  the  high  Dort  doctrine  that  "none  of  the 
truly  faithful  can  by  any  sins  fall  from  the  Grace  of  God."— Nulli  vere 
fideles  per  ulla  peccata  possunt  ex  gratia  Uei  excidere. — Damman.  in 
Concordia. 

*  Of  the  frightful  opinions  of  Maccovius  and  other  Dort  theologians 
I  have  already  given  some  samples.  One  of  the  memorable  decisions 
of  this  Synod  was  that  "  the  children  of  unbelievers  dying  in  their  in- 
fancy are  reprobate  as  well  as  their  parents." — Infantes  infidelium 
morientes  in  infantia  reprobatos  esse  statuimus. — Act  Synod.  Dord. 
This  humane  enactment  is  but  a  consequence  of  the  same  principle  on 
which  Predestinarians  hold  that  the  infants  of  godly  persons  are  in 
the  covenant  of  grace,  together  with  their  parents,  and  have  therein 
"  a  federal  interest."  The  following  is  the  impiously  familiar  manner 
in  which  the  draft  of  agreement,  as  it  may  be  called,  for  this  covenant 
between  God  and  the  seed  of  believers  is  drawn  up  by  one  of  the  theo* 
logians  of  the  sect :—"  They  (the  infants)  have  true,  real  and  proper 
interest  and  propriety  in  God.  As  they  are  his,  so  he  is  theirs.  There 
is  a  mutual  propriety  and  interest  in  each  other.  They  have  God  un- 
der an  actual  obligation,  viz.  of  his  promise,  to  improve  and  employ  all 
his  attributes  for  their  good,  benefit  and  advantage,  according  or  in  away 
agreeable  to  the  true  tenor  of  the  covenant  and  of  the  various  promises  of 
it.  They  have  a  present  interest  in  and  right  to  salvation  ;  and 
answerably,  in  case  of  their  death,  before  a  forfeiture  be  made  of  thai 
their  interest  and  right,  they  shall  infallibly  be  saved." — Whiston's  Pfi* 
mitive  Doct.  of  Inf.  Bap.  revived. 


(     257     ) 

In  England,  where,  at  this  period,  both  Court  and  Peo- 
ple were  casting  a  "  lingering  look  behind,"  towards 
their  Mother  Church,*  and  where  the  authority,  there- 
fore, of  the  Fathers  (bound  up,  as  it  is,  essentially  with 
Catholicism,)  was  regarded  still  with  reverence,  a  system 
of  doctrine  so  avowedly  opposed  as  was  that  of  Dort  to 
those  early  oracles  of  the  faith  could  hope  for  no  very  fa- 
vourable reception.  From  that  period,  indeed,  the  Church 
of  England  may  be  said,  in  the  words  of  the  ever-memo- 
rable Hales,f  to  have  "bid  John  Calvin  good  night:" — 
and  though  my  German  Lecturer,  in  contrasting  Calvin 
with  Luther,  assumed  that  the  sectaries  still  bearing  the 
name  of  the  former  maintain  also  his  doctrines,  it  will  be 
found  that  Calvinism,  though  still  far  from  being  (like  its 
sister  heresy,  Lutheranisjn)  extinct,  has  for  a  long  time 
been  shorn  of  its  most  baleful  beams;  insomuch  that  for 
one  rigid  adherent  to  the  reprobatory  branch  of  the  creed 
of  Geneva,  there  are  now  numbers  of  professed  Calvin- 
ists  who  confine  their  belief  to  the  sole  doctrine  of  Elec- 
tion,J  rejecting  more  charitably,  I  must  say,  than  logi- 
cally, its  concomitant  and  consequence,  Reprobation. 

Such,  rapidly  traced,  has  been  the  course  and  fate  of 
the  two  leading  branches  of  the  original  Protestant  creed; 
both  dwindled  away  to  mere  shadows  in  those  countries 
where  they  first  took  their  rise, — or  rather  superseded 
there  by  a  system  hardly  pretending  to  be  Christian, — 
while,  the  only  one  of  the  two  that  still  exists,  in  more 
than  name,  has  abandoned  all  that  constituted  originally 
its  essence,  and,  in  England,  is  chiefly  indebted  for  its 


*  "  I  acknowledge  (said  James  I.,  in  a  public  speech  to  his  Parlia- 
"ment,  1603)  the  Church  of  Rome  to  be  our  Mother  Church. " 

t  This  candid  and  simple-minded  man  went  to  Dort  a  Calvinist, 
but  "at  the  well-pressing  (as  he  himself  tells  us)  of  St.  John,  iii.  16,  by 
Episcopius, — 4  there  (says  he)  I  bid  John  Calvin  good  night.'  " 

X  "  I  am  aware  (says  Bishop  Tomline)  that  some  persons  now  living 
who  seem  to  glory  in  the  name  of  Calvinists  maintain  the  doctrine  of 
Election  and  reject  that  of  Reprobation.  That  this  was  not  the  sys- 
tem of  Calvin  himself  will  fully  appear  by  the  quotations  from  his 
works ;  and  that  it  was  not  the  system  of  the  Calvinists  at  the  end  of 
Queen  Elizabeth's  reign  will  be  equally  evident  from  the  first  of  the 
Lambeth  articles,  &c."    Refutation  of  Calvinism. 

"Many  Calvinists,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  including  the  princi- 
pal American  divines,  reject  the  second  leading  article  of  theCalvinistic 
creed,  and  hold  Universal  Redemption."— Adams'  Religious  World  Dis- 
played. 

22* 


(     258     ) 

distinctive  character  to  that  party  spirit,  which  a  Church, 
fenced  round  by  human  formularies,  is  always  sure  to  ge- 
nerate. 


CHAPTER  XLVIII. 

Rise  of  infidel  opinions  in  Europe,  soon  after  the  Synod  of  Dort.— 
Lord  Herbert,  Hobbes,  Spinoza.— Beginnings  of  Rationalism  among 
Calvinists.— Bekker,  Peyrere,  Meyer.— Lutheran  Church  continued 
free  from  infidelity  much  longer  than  the  Calvinist. 

The  main  object  which  I  had  in  view,  in  the  historical 
sketch  given  in  the  preceding  chapter,  is  to  show  that, 
in  the  reaction  produced  among  Protestants  themselves, 
as  well  by  the  impious  and  irrational  consequences  of 
some  of  their  own  doctrines,  as  by  the  unchristian  into- 
lerance with  which  those  doctrines  had  been  enforced, 
lay  one  of  the  chief  sources  of  that  infidelity  by  which 
their  churches  have  since  been  deluged. 

In  farther  confirmation  of  this  remark,  we  shall  find 
that  it  was  but  a  short  time  after  the  monstrous  decision 
of  the  Synod  of  Dort,*  that  scepticism  began  openly  to 
display  itself,  among  professed  Protestants,  in  different 
countries  of  Europe.  It  was  then,  in  that  dawn  of  the 
era  of  Rationalism,  that  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury  assert- 
ed the  sufficiency  and  absolute  perfection  of  the  Religion 
of  Nature; — that  Hobbes  anticipated  the  German  theolo- 
gians of  the  present  day  in  questioning  the  authenticity 

*  "  By  way  of  argument  to  the  following  story,  you  will  permit  me 
to  remind  you  that  the  Contra-remonstrants  in  the  Synod  of  Dort 
condemned  the  lax  opinions  of  the  Remonstrants,  concerning  Original 
Sin  and  Free  Will. 

"Two  of  their  divines  (Contra-remonstrants)  elated  with  victory, 
insulted  a  poor  fellow  who  was  a  Remonstrant,  and  said, '  What  were 
you  thinking  of  with  that  grave  face?1  '  1  was  thinking,  gentlemen,' 
said  he,  '  of  a  controverted  question — Who  was  the  author  of  sin? 
Adam  shifted  it  off  from  himself  and  laid  it  to  his  wife;  she  laid  it  to 
the  serpent;  the  serpent,  who  was  then  young  and  bashful,  had  not  a 
word  to  say  for  himself;  but  afterwards,  growing  older  and  more  au- 
dacious, hu  went  to  the  Synod  of  Dort,  and  there  he  had  the  -assurance 
to  charge  it  upon  God!'  "— Letters  from  the  late  Lord  Chedworth  to  the 
Rev,  Thomas  Crompton. 


(     259     ) 

of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  divine  authority  of  the 
New,  and  even  let  fall  those  seeds  of  doubt  as  to  the  ex- 
istence of  a  Supreme  Being,  which,  in  the  gloomy  mind 
of  his  contemporary,  Spinoza,  soon  ripened  into  Atheism. 

Already,  too,  at  that  same  period  had  a  school  of  Di- 
vines, under  the  name  of  Rationals,  appeared  whose  prin- 
ciple it  was  to  apply  the  touch-stone  of  reason  to  religion, 
and  reject  all  that  was  not  conformable  to  that  capricious 
test.*  It  is  also  confirmatory  of  what  I  have  above  re- 
marked as  to  the  share  Calvinism  had  in  producing  these 
results,  that  Predestination  was  the  very  first  doctrine  on 
which  these  Socinians  in  disguise  opened  their  batteries. 
As  might  be  expected,  too,  it  was  among  Calvinists  that 
the  reaction  against  their  own  creed  commenced;  and 
thus  has  the  same  sect,  by  a  fate  common  to  all  heresies, 
given  birth  to  the  opposing  extremes, — both  to  the  fana- 
ticism which  first  ingrafted  such  errors  on  Christianity 
and  the  infidelity  which  tore  up  tree  and  graft  together. 

One  of  the  first  of  these  Calvinist  sceptics  was  Bekker, 
a  Dutch  divine,  who,  attempting  the  same  sort  of  alliance 
between  Philosophy  and  Religion  which  has  been  the 
means  of  bringing  Christianity  to  its  present  state  in 
Germany,  employed  the  principles  of  Descartes  to  under- 
mine some  of  the  leading  doctrines  of  Scripture.  The 
account  of  the  temptation  of  our  first  parents,  the  agency 
of  good  and  evil  spirits,  the  demoniac  possessions  in  the 
New  Testament,  and  the  temptation  of  our  Saviour,  were 
among  the  chief  points  on  which  this  Rationalist  divine 
exercised  his  scepticism;  and  while  his  master,  Calvin, 
besides  that  demoniac  principle  which  he  supposed  lodged 
in  every  human  breast,  admitted  also  the  direct  influence 
of  the  Devil  on  human  actions,  his  follower,  Bekker,  de- 
nies all  agency  of  the  Devil  whatever,  and  (forestalling 
the  shallow  device  of  our  modern  Rationalists,  so  much 
as  to  leave  them  not  even  the  credit  of  originality  in 
wTrong)  resolves  all  those  passages  in  the  Old  and  New 
Testament,  where  the  interposition  of  the  Evil  Spirit  is 
described,  into  mere  allegory  and  mythos. 

To  another  Calvinist  writer,  still  earlier,  (1655)  the  an- 
nals of  nationalism  are  indebted  for  a  book  which,  though 


*  See  an  account  of  this  school  of  Theologians  in  Bayle's  Reppns?, 
auz  Questions  (Tun  Provincial,  c.  130. 


(     260     ) 

now  long  forgotten,  produced  on  its  first  appearance,  such 
an  explosion  of  indignation  as  could  with  difficulty  be 
brought  to  stop  short  at  the  mere  imprisonment  of  the 
author.  Of  this  strange  work*  the  main  object  is  to 
prove  from  the  fifth  Chapter  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Romans, 
that  there  had  existed  nations  and  races  of  men  before 
Adam,  and  that  he  was  but  called  the  first  man,  because 
with  him  the  Law  commenced. 

In  the  course  of  his  pretended  proofs  of  this  hypothesis, 
the  author  (a  French  Protestant,  Peyrere)  suggests  solu- 
tions of  some  of  the  miracles  of  the  Old  Testament  which 
approach  nearer  even  than  those  of  Bekker  to  the  plain 
but  clumsy  mode  of  interpretation  adopted  by  Paulus  and 
other  moderns.  For  instance,  it  was  not  necessary,  he 
says,  that  the  sun  should  retrograde  because  the  shadow 
of  the  dial  was  put  back  for  Hezekiah.  Whatever  mira- 
cle there  was  in  the  circumstance  must  be  confined  to  the 
dial  of  Ahaz  alone.f 

In  the  same  manner,  the  sun  standing  still  for  Joshua 
was  nothing  more,  he  thinks,  than  that  sort  of  optical  de- 
lusion which  is  common  in  most  hilly  countries,  at  sun- 
set, when,  though  the  sun  has  gone  down,  its  orb  appears 
to  be  still  stationary  in  the  heavens.}  The  miracle  in 
Deuteronomy  of  the  clothes  and  shoes  of  the  Israelites 
having  been  kept  from  "  waxing  old,"  during  their  forty 
years  in  the  wilderness,  this  author  ridicules  in  almost 
the  very  same  terms  which  were  employed  afterwards 
by  Voltaire  for  the  same  purpose; J  and  the  whole  mira- 


*  Pr<Fadam\t<z  sive  Exercitatio  super  versibus  12,  13,  14,  cap  5,  Epist. 
Paul,  ad  Romanos. 

t  Ponatur  miraculum  in  horologio  ipso,  in  horologio  Achas,  ut  vult 
Seriptura  ;  stabit  miraculum  suo  loco— stabit  natura  suo  ordine,  nee 
faseinabitur  intellectus  praestigiis  inanibus. 

X  Fulgor  eolis,  sine  sole  ipso,  et  miraculo  maximo  euperesset  in  at- 
mosphaera,  vel  regione  vaporum  ilia,  qua?  civitati  Gabaonica?,  cseli  et 
ae'ris  medio,  incubabat :  Solis  vero  fulgor  civitatem  Gabaonicara  et 
montem  Gabaon  verberaret,  &c. — The  author  adds  that  he  himself  had 
often  witnessed  the  same  phenomenon  among  the  mountains  of  duer- 
cy,  where  he  dwelt. 

§  Quod  de  ealceamentis  eorum  itidem  dejerant,  nulla  unquam  ve- 
tustate  fuisse  eonsumpta,  atque  adeo  ubi  primum  induxissent  calceos 
infantibus  cre-centibus  infantum  pedibus,  crevisse  eorum  calceos.— 
•'  Non  seulement  (says  Voltaire)  les  habits  de9  Hebreux  ne  s'userent 
point  dans  leur  marche  de  quarante  annees,  au  soleil  et  a  la  pluie,  et 
en  couchant  sur  la  dure,  mais  que  ceux  des  enfans  croissaient  avec 
eux,  et  s'elargissaient  raerveilleusement,  a  mesure  qu'ili  avancaient 
en  age." 


(     201     ) 

cle  is,  he  thinks,  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  supplies  of 
materials  for  making  clothing  which  the  Israelites  de- 
rived from  their  flocks  and  other  natural  sources.  From 
the  plea  set  forth  by  this  author  in  defence  of  his  own 
impiety, — that  he  had  been  led  to  such  doctrine  "  by  the 
'principle  of  Protestants," — we  may  see  how  clearly, 
even  at  that  time,  the  natural  tendency  of  Protestantism 
to  gravitate  towards  infidelity,  was  not  merely  prognos- 
ticated, but  felt. 

There  is  yet  another  work  of  the  same  period,  (1666) 
which  both  its  title  and  the  circumstance  of  its  being  re- 
published by  Sender,  sufficiently  announce  as  one  of  the 
harbingers  of  that  infidel  school  of  which  Semler  was  the 
founder.  I  allude  to  the  once  celebrated  work,  "  Philo- 
sophy, the  Interpreter  of  Scripture,"  which,  on  its  first 
appearance,  was  attributed  to  the  notorious  Spinoza,  but 
proved  afterwards  to  have  come  from  the  pen  of  his  friend 
and  physician,  Lewis  Meyer. 

In  subtlety  as  well  as  in  mischief,  this  Amsterdam  Ra- 
tionalist was  a  fit  forerunner  of  the  present  race  of  Pro- 
testant sceptics;  and  the  following  specimen  of  his  work 
will  at  once  show  its  insidious  nature,  and  prove, — what 
frequently  I  have  endeavoured  to  impress  upon  my  reader, 
— the  great  triumph  it  has  been  for  infidelity,  by  the 
avowal  of  infidels  themselves,  to  have  been  able,  by  phi- 
losophizing away  the  mystery  of  the  Real  Presence,  to 
open  a  way  for  the  subversion  of  all  mysteries  what- 
ever. "  There  are  (says  this  pupil  of  Spinoza)  three  Mys- 
teries, of  which  Philosophy  alone  can  properly  be  the  in- 
terpreter ;  and  these  are,  1.  God, — 2.  the  Real  Presence, 
— 3.  the  Trinity.  The  second  of  these,  the  Reformed 
Church  has  already  disposed  of, — showing,  by  the  aid  of 
Philosophy,  that  her  own  opinion,  on  the  subject,  is  the 
true  one,  and  that  of  the  Catholics  and  Lutherans,  ab- 
surd." With  a  silence,  then,  but  too  significant,  as  to 
the  first  of  the  three  Mysteries  on  his  list,  he  proceeds  to 
apply  to  the  third  the  mode  of  philosophizing  which  had 
been  so  successful  with  the  second.* 


*  Of  the  discussion,  respecting  the  mystery  of  the  Trinity,  he  says— 
41  Q,uanto  sane  satius  fuisset  illam  pro  mysterio  non  habuisse,  et  phi- 
losophise ope,  antequarn  quod  esset  6tatuerent.  secundum  verse  logices 
praecepta,  quid  esset  cum  CI.  Kekkermanno  investigasse." 

That  the  absurdities  of  theology  have  been,  at  all  times,  the  food 


(      262      ) 

Having  traced  thus  far  the  progress  of  that  Anti-chris- 
tian  principle,  which  deriving  its  origin  from  the  very 
foundations  of  Protestantism  itself,  has  since  branched  out 
in  a  multiplicity  of  names  and  shapes,  and  is,  at  this  mo- 
ment, under  its  most  recent  and  apparently  last  disguise, 
employed  in  spiriting  away  the  substance  of  Christianity, 
in  every  country  where  the  Reformation  has  taken  root, 
I  shall  now,  for  the  farther  descending  steps  of  the  pedi- 
gree of  this  principle,  more  especially  in  that  country 
where  its  effects  are  most  conspicuous,  refer  to  the  pages 
of  a  writer  whose  authority  I  have  frequently  had  to  ad- 
duce, Mr.  Pusey.  The  ability  and  research  with  which 
this  gentleman  has  traced,  through  all  its  stages,  that 
"  gradual  descent  (as  he  expresses  it)  of  Theology  into  a 
a  system  of  unbelief,"  which  marked  the  course  of  the 
German  Church,  during  the  eighteenth  century,  can  ad- 
mit of  no  dissentient  opinion.  It  is  only  to  be  regretted 
that,  by  confining  himself  exclusively  to  the  Lutheran 
branch  of  Protestantism,  he  has  lost  the  still  stronger  il- 
lustrations of  his  subject  which  the  career  of  Calvinism 
would  so  strikingly  have  supplied ;  and  it  is,  in  some  mea- 
sure, to  remedy  this  very  important  omission  that  those 
instances  of  the  progress  of  Rationalism  among  Calvin- 
ists,  which  I  have  just  laid  before  the  reader,  were  col- 
lected. 

There  would  be  no  difficulty,  indeed,  in  showing  that, 
from  the  very  first,  a  disposition  to  unbelief  was  far  more 
prevalent  among  the  members  of  the  Reformed  Church 
than  of  the  Lutheran ;  and  the  names  of  Laelius  Socinus, 
Gentilis,  Ochinus  and  others  prove  how  early  Geneva 
began  to  produce  its  natural  fruits.  Without  ascending 
any  higher,  however,  than  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 


and  fuel  of  scepticism  cannot  be  more  clearly  proved  than  by  the  use 
which  this  writer  makes  of  the  monstrous  notion  broached  by  some 
Protestant  divines,  that  God  intentionally  gave  double  meanings  to 
some  of  the  precepts  of  his  Word,  and  rather  wished  that  they  should 
be  misunderstood  by  those  to  whom  he  addressed  them.  Such  is  the 
doctrine  advanced  in  a  passage  of  Wolzous  which  he  cites: — "Quan* 
doque  Deus.  ut  dubios  et  suspensos  relinquat,  vel  ip?°s  eos,  quos  suffi- 
cienti  gratia  spiritus  donavit,  ut  quaecunque  ex  ilia  tunc  oratione 
hauriri  possint,  eliciant,  non  tamen  omnem  eliciant  veritatem  :  ora- 
tionem  enim  volvat  et  revolvat  centies.  sit  vacuus  praeconceptis  opi- 
nioniuus,  omnia  examinet,  quae  usus  linguae  requirit,  ut  intuenti  tex- 
turn  nil  appareat  esse  neglectum,  noluit  tamen  hoc  tempore  intelligi 
Di.us,  imo  voluit  permittere  ut  aliquaniisper  errarctur. 


(     263     ) 

century,  we  have  seen  that  at  a  time  when  the  Lutheran 
Church  was  still  immersed  in  all  the  absurdities  of  its 
theology, — wrangling,  tooth  and  nail,  against  Good 
Works  and  for  the  Ubiquity  of  Christ's  manhood, — -the 
process  of  reasoning  away  all  Christian  doctrine  what- 
ever had  already  commenced  among  the  Calvinists ;— • 
that  long  before  any  of  those  critics  and  scholars  were 
born,  to  whom  Mr.  Pusey  assigns  the  first  origin  of  Ra- 
tionalism, its  most  distinguishing  features  and  principles 
had  been  anticipated;  and  that  the  very  subject  of  Demo- 
niacal Possessions,  upon  which  Semler  commenced  his 
rationalizing  career,  had  been  turned  by  Bekker  to  the 
same  sceptical  purposes  more  than  half  a  century  before. 


4i*^>*^©  ^9  ©44***** 


CHAPTER  XLIX. 


Return  to  England.— Inquiry  into  the  history  of  English  Protestant" 
ism. — Its  close  similarity  to  the  history  of  German  Protestantism.— - 
Selfishness  and  hypocrisy  of  the  first  Reformers  in  both  countries. — ■ 
Variations  of  creed. — Persecutions  and  burnings. — Recantations  of 
Cranmer,  Latimer.,  &c. — Effects  of  the  Reformation  in  demoralizing 
the  people. — Proofs  from  German  and  English  writers. 

They  show,  or,  at  least,  used  to  show,  in  the  library 
of  the  Abbey  of  St.  Anthony,  in  Dauphine,  an  original 
letter  of  Erasmus,*  in  which  that  great  man  declares  that 
he  would  sooner  suifer  himself  to  be  cut  to  pieces  than 
not  believe  in  the  reality  of  the  body  and  blood  in  the 
Sacrament.  Without  pretending  to  more  of  the  spirit  of 
a  martyr  than  I  am  likely  to  be  called  upon  to  exercise, 
and  confining  my  heroism,  too,  within  bounds  proportion- 
ate to  the  immense  distance  between  my  humble  self  and 
Erasmus,  I  shall  here  merely  communicate  to  my  reader 
that  I  had  now  come  to  the  magnanimous  determination 
to  prefer  Popery  and  poverty,  for  the  remainder  of  my 
days,  to  the  alternative  of  Protestantism  and  JE2000  a 
year,  with  Miss  *  *,  at  Ballymudragget. 

*  Voyage  Litteraire  de  deux  Religieuz  Benedictins, 


(     2C4     ) 

After  remaining  some  months  longer  in  Germany,  I 
prepared  to  set  out  for  England, — having  passed  the  latter 
part  of  my  time  in  society  much  more  suited  to  my  tastes 
than  that  of  the  Scratchenbachs  of  the  University,  name- 
ly, some  quiet  and  intelligent  Catholic  families,  whom  I 
found  in  the  midst  of  this  wreck  of  all  other  creeds,  pur- 
suing tranquilly  and  implicitly  the  very  same  paths  of 
faitrT which  their  Church  has  now  trodden  for  near  two 
thousand  years.  It  is,  indeed,  a  most  impressive  specta- 
cle, which  the  state  of  Germany,  at  this  moment,  pre- 
sents; divided, — according  to  Mr.  Southey's  concise  and 
pithy  description, — "between  the  old  religion,  on  one 
side,  and  the  new  irreligion  on  the  other."* 

The  sagacious  prediction  of  Bayle,  that  a  day  would 
yet  arrive  when  the  Lutherans,  no  longer  finding  their 
creed  in  the  Augsburg  Confession,  would  "  put  all  mat- 
ters again  on  their  former  footing,"  is  now  in  a  fair  train 
for  accomplishment ;  as  already  numbers  of  Protestants, 
disgusted  at  the  unchristian  mockery  of  their  own  mis- 
called churches,  have  embraced  the  faith  of  Rome,  with 
every  prospect  of  their  example  being  still  more  exten- 
sively followed.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  alarm  produced  by 
these  desertions  to  the  Catholic  Church,  that  has  chiefly 
caused  that  apparent  reaction,  in  favour  of  Christianity, 
which  has  been,  of  late,  observable  in  Germany,  as  well 
as  those  retractions  of  their  former  blasphemies  which  the 
De  Wettes  and  Bretschneiders  have,  with  so  little  ap- 
pearance, I  must  say,  of  sincerity,*  been  hastening  to 
proffer  to  the  public. 

On  my  arrival  in  England,  finding  my  taste  for  theo- 
logical reading  return,  I  was  glad  to  avail  myself  of  the 
few  months  of  leisure  I  had  yet  at  command,  and  imme- 
diately proceeded  to  inquire  into  the  state  and  history  of 
Protestantism  in  that  country,  quite  as  zealously  as  I  had 
pursued  the  similar  line  of  study  in  Germany.  Not  that 
there  hung  even  the  penumbra  of  a  doubt  round  the  con- 

*  CUoquies,  #e. 

t  Thouch  professing,  as  it  seem;?,  to  recant  their  former  sceptical 
notions,  both  these  writers  have  republished,  and  with  but  little  alte- 
iatiou,the  very  works  which  contained  them;  and  in  the  Preface 
which  De  Wette  has  prefixed  to  the  second  edition  of  his  "De  Morte 
Expiatoria,  &c."  we  find  little  more  than  a  sort  of  apology  for  his  un- 
christian assertion,  that  "  Jesus  took  upou  himself  to  personate  the 
ah.  ' 


(     265     ) 

diusions  at  which  I  had  now  arrived;  but,  having  carried 
thus  far  the  researches  which  I  had  been  induced  to  en- 
ter upon,  it  was  naturally  my  wish  to  collect  such  mate* 
rials,  respecting  the  English  Church,  as  would  enable  me 
to  complete  the  Panorama  of  Protestantism  which  I  had 
commenced.  Having  now,  however,  nearly  filled  up  the 
canvas  which  I  had  allotted  for  the  sketch  contained  in 
these  volumes,  I  must  reserve  the  picture  which  I  had 
prepared  of  the  English  Reformation  for  some  future  op- 
portunity. 

In  the  meantime,  I  shall  here  briefly  call  attention  to 
a  few  ominous  resemblances,  which,  on  comparing  the 
course  of  English  with  that  of  German  Protestantism* 
could  not  but  strike  me  as  existing  strongly  between 
them,— ^so  strongly  as  scarcely  to  warrant  even  a  hope 
that  two  systems  so  kindred  in  their  origin  and  tenden- 
cies could  lead,  ultimately,  to  any  other  than  kindred  re- 
sults. The  same  selfishness  and  hypocrisy  which  marked 
the  movers  of  the  German  Reformation,  are  seen  but  in 
more  intense  and  revolting  activity  among  the  founders 
of  the  same  faith  in  England.*  The  hi^h  stations,  in- 
deed,  of  the  principal  actors  on  the  latter  scene,  gave 
proportionately  more  impulse  and  opportunity  to  such 
vices ;  and,  while  in  Henry  VIII.  we  find  all  the  tempe- 
rament of  a  Luther  let  loose,  as  it  were,  upon  a  throne, 
so  in  Cranmer  all  the  suppleness  and  hypocrisy  of  a  Bu- 
cer  were,  by  the  constant  demands  upon  him  for  these 
qualities,  multiplied  a  hundred  fold.f 

Even  the  subservience  shown  by  the  Reformers  of  both 

*  The  writer  of  an  article  in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  upon  Mr.  Hal* 
lam's  admirable  work,  the  Constitutional  History,  thus  truly  described 
the  founders  of  the  English  Reformation  : — "  A  king,  whose  character* 
may  be  best  described  by  saying,  that  he  was  despotism  itself  personi* 
fied :  unprincipled  ministers;  a  rapacious  aristocracy;  a  servile  par- 
liament. Such  were  the  instruments  by  which  England  was  delivered 
from  the  yoke  of  Rome.  The  work  which  had  been  begun  by  Henry, 
the  murderer  of  his  wives,  was  continued  by  Somerset,  the  murderer 
of  his  brother,  and  completed  by  Elizabeth,  the  murderer  of  her  guest/'— » 
Edinburgh  Review. 

f  It  is  not  a  little  curious  to  observe  thatv  in  the  same  manner  as 
the  violence  and  intolerance  of  Luther  were  inherited  amply  by  his 
church,  so  the  hypocrisy  and  servile  spirit  of  Cranmer  have  survived 
to  this  day  in  that  establishment  of  which  he  was  a  foundef;  and  id 
no  instance,  perhaps,  has  the  hypocritical  taint,  thus  entailed,  been 
more  strikingly  exhibited  than  in  those  vindications  of  his  (Cfan- 
mer's)  own  character,  which,  in  defiance  of  all  truth  and  decency, 
even  such  respectable  divines  as  the  Rev.  Mr.  Todd  think  themselves 
bound,  for  the  sake  and  interests  of  their  order,  to  undertaise* 

23 


(     260      ) 

countries  to  the  gross  passions  of  their  royal  patrons  will 
be  found  to  have  been  marked  by  the  same  comparative 
degrees  of  baseness;  for  while,  on  the  one  hand,  the  licen- 
tious bigamy  of  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse, — licentious,  but 
at  least  bloodless, — received  the  sanction,  under  their  own 
signatures  of  Luther,  Bucer,  and  Melancthon,  on  the  other, 
the  murderous  marriages  of  Henry  VIII.  were  not  only 
connived  at,  but  concerted,  by  those  still  more  obsequious 
tools  of  Royal  Reformation,  Cranmer  and  Cromwell.* 

The  changes  of  doctrine  through  which,  in  both  coun- 
tries, the  new  creed  had  to  transmigrate,  form  another 
of  those  points  of  resemblance  which  force  themselves  on 
our  attention;  and,  as  if,  even  then,  the  founders  of  Pro- 
testantism had  a  sort  of  prescient  consciousness  that  their 
Church,  in  "  fame  of  instability,"  would  rival  even  De- 
les,! a  provision  for  future  changes,  accordingly  as  occa- 
sion might  require,  was  expressly  stipulated  for  by  IUe- 
lancthon,  and,  in  England,  formed  the  subject  of  that 
prospective  declaration  to  which  the  obedient  bishops  of 
Henry  VIII.  did  not  hesitate  to  pledge  themselves. 

That  amono-  the  first  English  Reformers  there  should 
have  been  so  little  of  that  contentious  spirit  which  ren- 
dered theology  such  an  arena  of  discord  among  the  Ger- 
mans, is  a  fact  easily,  but  disgracefully,  to  be  accounted 
for  by  the  self- prostration  of  the  English  Church  before 
the  throne,  which  left  her  no  will  or  opinion  but  at  the 
beck  of  the  monarch,  no  alternative  but  to  believe  what- 
ever he  dictated,  and  be  silent. J 

To  the  same  slavish  self-abasement,  is  to  be  attributed 
that  facility  in  recanting  and  abjuring  which  some  of  the 
most  eminent  of  the  English  divines,  by  frequent  prac- 
tice, acquired :  the  specious  Cranmer  having  subscribed 

*  The  writer  of  the  article  in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  above  referred 
to, — an  article  written  with  a  power  of  thought  and  style  which  leaves 
no  doubt  as  to  the  masterly  hand  from  which  it  came, — thus  speaks  of 
Cranmer: — "  Intolerance  is  always  bad;  but  the  sanguinary  intole- 
rance of  a  man  who  thus  wavered  in  his  creed  creates  a  loathing  to 
which  it  is  difficult  to  give  vent  without  calling  foul  names.  Equally 
false  to  political  and  to  religious  obligations,  he  was  first  the  tool  of 
Somerset,  and  then  of  Northumberland.  When  the  former  wished  to 
put  his  awn  brother  to  death,  without  even  the  form  of  a  trial,  he 
found  a  ready  instrument  in  Cranmer,"  &e.  <fce. 

t Nee  instabili  fama  superabere  Delo. — Stat. 

I  So  far  did  the  Church  of  England  carry  the  slavish  principle  on 
which  she  commenced  her  course,  thnt,  on  the  death  of  Henry  VI If., 
Cranmer  surrendered  his  archiepiseopal  authority  to  the  infant  mo- 
ndial, and  received  it  back  at  his  hands. 


(     267     ) 

no  less  than  six  recantations;  while  Latimer  even  ex- 
ceeded, by  two  or  three,  that  number.  Still  more  dis- 
gusting was  the  spectacle  which  these  dissemblers  pre- 
sented in  acting  as  persecutors  for  the  cause  which  in 
secret  they  hated,  and  condemning  wretches  to  the  flames 
for  opinions  with  which,  in  their  hearts,  they  agreed. 

In  this  monstrous  combination  of  insincerity  with  cru- 
elty, lies  the  distinction  between  the  English  and  Helve- 
tian persecutors ;  for,  though  these  latter  champions  of 
the  right  of  private  judgment  condemned  Servetus  to  the 
flames,  and  sent  Gentilus  and  Gruet  to  the  block,  it  was, 
at  least,  for  opinions  which  they  themselves  held  to  be 
heretical  and  impious.  But  the  code  of  persecution  had 
yet  to  furnish  a  still  more  notable  precedent;  and  for  those 
Saints  of  the  English  Church,  Latimer  and  Cranmer,  it 
was  reserved  to  sit  as  accessaries  to  the  burning  of  Chris- 
tians for  opinions  which  they,  the  burners,  approved ! 

While  such  were  the  moral  fruits  of  the  Reformation, 
as  displayed  in  its  leading  authors  and  teachers,  the  ef- 
fect which  it  produced  on  the  people  at  large  could  not 
be  expected  to  have  been  of  a  more  salutary  character. 
Accordingly,  the  descriptions  given  by  eminent  Protes- 
tant writers,  both  English  and  German,  of  the  state  of 
morality  in  their  respective  countries,  during  the  first 
century  of  this  great  change,  bear,  upon  every  essential 
point,  such  similarity  to  each  other,  as  leaves  not  a  doubt 
of  the  common  origin  of  the  evils  of  which  they  complain. 

To  begin  with  the  Germans. — Throughout  the  writings 
of  the  admirable  Andrea,  a  man>  who,  to  use  the  language 
of  Herder,*  "  bloomed  like  a  rose  among  thorns,"  we  find 
the  most  bitter  complaints  of  the  flagrant  corruption  of 
his  times.  "  Idols,"  he  says,  "  have  been  cast  out,  but  the 
idols  of  sins  are  worshipped.  The  primacy  of  the  Pope 
is  denied,  but  we  constitute  lesser  popes.  The  bishops 
are  abrogated,  but  ministers  are  still  introduced  or  cast 
out,  at  will.  Simony  came  into  disrepute,  but  who  now 
rejects  a  purse  of  gold  ]  The  monks  were  reproached  for 
indolence, — as  if  there  were  too  much  study  at  our  Uni- 
versities. The  monasteries  were  dissolved, — to  stand 
empty,  or  to  be  stalls  for  cattle.  The  regularly  recurring 
prayers  are  abolished, — yet  so  that  now  most  pray  not  at 
all.     The  public  fasts  were  laid  aside, — now  the  com- 

*  Quoted  by  Mr.  Pusey. 


(     268     ) 

mands  of  Christ  arc  held  to  be  but  useless  words;  not  to 
cay  any  thing  of  blasphemers,  adulterers,  extortioners, 
&c."*  Another  writer,  Walch,  acknowledges  that  "  the 
complaints  of  the  sunken  state  of  Christianity,  and  the 
corruption  of  the  clergy,  were  not  exaggerated;"  and 
CarpzofF,  in  speaking  of  the  efforts  of  the  pious  Spener 
to  amend  "  the  stiff-neckedness  of  that  godless  age,"  says, 
" 1  praise  the  attempt,  I  add  my  wishes;  but  I  despair  of 
success,  on  account  of  the  desperate  depravity  of  these 
last  times." 

By  the  side  of  these  strong  testimonies  to  the  demora- 
lizing effect  of  the  Reformation  in  Germany,  I  shall  here 
place  two  passages,  describing  its  results  in  England, 
from  no  less  authorities  than  Camden  and  Burnet: — 
M  Sacrilegious  avarice,"  says  Camden,  in  speaking  of  the 
time  of  Edward  VI.  "ravenously  invaded  Church  livings, 
colleges,  chantries,  hospitals,  and  places  dedicated  to  the 
poor,  as  things  superfluous.  Ambition  and  emulation 
among  the  nobility,  presumption  and  disobedience  among 
the  common  people,  grew  so  extravagant,  that  England 
jseemed  to  be  in  a  downright  frenzy."f 

"  Not  less  strong,  to  the  same  purport,  is  Burnet : — 
"  This  gross  and  insatiable  scramble  after  the  goods  and 
wealth  that  had  been  dedicated  to  good  designs,  without 
the  applying  any  part  of  it  to  promote  the  good  of  the 
gospel,  the  instruction  of  the  poor,  made  all  people  con- 
elude  that  it  was  for  robbery,  and  not  for  reformation,  that 
their  zeal  made  them  so  active.  The  irregular  and  im- 
moral lives  of  many  of  the  professors  of  the  gospel  gave 
their  enemies  great  advantage  to  say,  that  they  ran  away 
from  confession,  penance,  fasting,  and  prayer,  only  to  be 
under  no  restraint,  and  to  indulge  themselves  in  a  licen- 
tious and  dissolute  course  of  life.  J     By  these  things,  that 

*  In  another  place,  Andrea  says,  "he  who  knows  the  avarice  of  the 
clerey  and  their  unbridled  life,  will  not  be  astonished  that  they  no 
longer  stand  in  that  respect  with  the  people  which  were  fitting."  If 
we  may  believe  this  pious  and  conscientious  writer,  Luther  himself 
foresaw,  or,  rather,  already  experienced,  the  baleful  consequences  of 
the  creed  which  he  yet  so  rashly  preached.  "  No  complaints,"  says 
Andrea.  '•  more  often  occur  to  me  than  those  of  that  divine  man  (Lu- 
ther) who  foresaw  the  license  of  the  Evangelical  Church,  and  whose  pen 
unconquerable  by  all  his  enemies,  almost  sunk  under  the  dissoluteness  of 
Jiis  followers,  and  the  specious  pretext  of  the  Gospel." 

f  Camden,  Introduction  to  the  Jlnnals  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 

|  Almost  word  for  word,  the  very  language  employed  by  Bucer,  in 
describing  the  effects  of  the  Reformation  in  Germany. — See  the  pas 
zzue  extracted  from  his  De  Regn.  Christ,  p.  166  of  thjs  work 


(     209     ) 

were  but  too  visible  in  some  of  the  most  eminent  among 
them,  the  people  were  much  alienated  from  them;  and, 
as  much  as  they  were  formerly  against  Popery,  they  grew 
to  have  kinder  thoughts  of  it,  and  to  look  on  all  tbe  changes 
that  had  been  made  as  designs  to  enrich  some  vicious  cha- 
racters, and  to  let  in  an  inundation  of  vice  and  wickedness 
upon  the  nation."* 

We  have  seen  with  what  slowness  and  reluctance  the 
great  mystery  of  the  Real  Presence  was  surrendered  by 
almost  all  the  continental  Reformers, — Luther  himself, 
with  all  his  efforts,  being  unable  to  cast  it  off,f  and  Me- 
lancthon,  though,  in  his  latter  days,  inclined  to  Sacra- 
mentarianism,  yet  leaving  undisturbed  in  the  Protestant 
formularies  of  faith,  those  affirmations  of  the  ancient  doc- 
trine which  his  own  hand  had  there  recorded;  while  Cal- 
vin, in  order  to  disguise  the  extent  of  his  innovation, 
threw  such  ambiguity  of  phrase  round  his  rejection  of  a 
Real  Presence,  as  enabled  Bucer  to  pretend  that  it  was 
meant  as  an  acceptance  of  it| 

*  Hist,  of  the  Reformation.— To  thase  undeniable  testimonies  may  be 
added  that  of  Strype: — "The  Churchmen  heaped  up  many  benefices 
upon  themselves,  and  resided  upon  none,  neglecting  their  cures:  many 
of  them  alienated  their  lands,  made  unreasonable  leases,  and  wastes 
of  their  woods;  granted  reversions  and  advowsons  to  their  wives  and 
children,  or  to  others  for  their  use.  Churches  ran  greatly  into  dilapi- 
dations and  decays,  and  were  kept  nasty  and  indecent  for  God's  wor- 
ship. Among  the  laity  there  was  little  devotion; — the  Lord's  day 
greatly  profaned  and  little  observed;  the  common  prayers  not  frequent- 
ed. Some  lived  without  any  service  of  God  at  all.  Many  were  mere 
heathens  and  atheists; — the  Queen's  own  court  a  harbour  for  Epicures 
and  atheists,  and  a  kind  of  lawless  place,  because  it  stood  in  no  pa- 
rish."— Life  of  Parker. 

t  Luther  became,  indeed,  even  more  Popish,  on  this  point,  before  his 
death;  and  in  a  Thesis  published  by  him  against  the  Doctors  of  Lou- 
vain,  in  1545,  (but  a  year  before  he  died,)  called  the  Eucharist  "  the 
adorable  Sacrament;"  to  the  no  small  consternation  of  the  Sacramen- 
tarians,  whom  he  had  delighted  by  abolishing  the  elevation,  and  whom, 
therefore,  this  inconsistent  admission  but  the  more  thoroughly  con- 
founded. Calvin  writes  to  Bucer  on  the  occasion,  "  He  has  lifted  up 
the  idol  in  the  temple  of  God." 

t  We  find  a  similar  style  of  mystification  still  resorted  to  by  those 
few  Protestant  controvertists,  who,  in  order  to  maintain  some  little 
consistency  with  the  Church  of  England  Catechism,  affect  to  uphold  a 
Real  Presence.  Thus,  the  theologians  of  the  British  Critic  insist  that 
14  a  Real  Presence  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of  England;"— while 
Mr.  Faber  talks  of  a  change  in  the  elements, — a  moral  change."  All 
this,  however,  is  but  a  mere  stale  repetition  of  the  old  trick  of  Heresy, 
"speaking  the  same  things,  but  meaning  them  differently,"  o/uctot 
jtxtv  x*\ouvtss,  ttvojuoict  Jg  0£cvovvTic>  In  such  manner  was  it,  aslre- 
naeus  tells  us,  that  the  first  Gnostics  proceeded,— using  the  same  lan- 
guage with  the  orthodox  Church,  but  thinking  differently. 

23* 


(     270     ) 

A  similar  reluctance  to  part  with  this  vital  doctrine  was 
manifested  through  a  very  long  period  in  England.  Under 
Henry  VIII.  the  zeal  of  both  monarch  and  church  for  its 
maintenance  was  shown  by  their  burning  all  those  who 
dared  openly  to  dissent  from  it;  and  in  the  following 
reign,  we  find  even  the  introducer  of  Zwinglianism,  Pe* 
ter  Martyr,  allowing,  as  Fox  tells  us,  "a  change  of  sub* 
gtance  of  bread  and  wine."* 

In  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  who  was  herself  supposed  to 
favour  this  doctrine,  a  paragraph  added  to  the  28th  Arti- 
cle in  the  time  of  Edward  VI.,  and  declaring  expressly 
against  a  Real  Presence,  was,  by  her  desire,  suppressed.! 
**  She  inclined,"  says  Burnet,  "  to  have  the  manner  of 
Christ's  presence  in  the  Sacrament  left  in  some  general 
words,  that  those  who  believed  the  Corporal  Presence 
might  not  be  driven  away  from  the  Church  by  too  nice 
an  explanation  of  it." 

Even  at  so  late  a  period  as  during  the  reigns  of  James 
I.  and  his  successor,  the  language  of  many  most  eminent 
Prelates,  respecting  this  Sacrament,  differed  but  little 
from  that  of  Catholics  themselves  upon  the  subject.  "  We 
adore,  with  Ambrose,"!  says  Bishop  Andrews,  "  the  flesh 
of  Christ  in  the  Mysteries."  The  same  divine,  address- 
ing Bellarmine,  and  professing  to  answer  as  well  for  King 

*  At  or»e  of  the  disputations  held  between  Protestants  and  Catho* 
lies,  during  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Sixth,  the  Real  Presence  was  as- 
serted by  the  advocate  of  the  Protestant  cause,  Mr.  Perne,  who  said. 
"We  deny  nothing  less  than  his  presence,  or  the  absence  of  his  sub- 
stance in  the  bread."     At  this  disputation,  Ridley  presided. 

t  The  following  is  the  paragraph:—"  Forasmuch  as  the  truth  of  man's 
nature  requireth  that  the  body  of  one  and  the  self-same  man  cannot 
be,  at  one  time,  in  divers  places,  but  must  needs  be  in  one  certain  place; 
therefore  the  body  of  Christ  cannot  be,  at  one  time,  in  many  and  divers 
places,  and  because,  as  Holy  Scripture  doth  teach,  Christ  was  taken  up 
into  heaven,  end  there  shall  continue  unto  the  end  of  the  world,  a 
faithful  man  ought  not  either  to  believe  or  openly  confess  the  Real 
and  Bodily  Presence,  as  they  term  it.  of  Christ's  flesh  and  blood  in  the 
Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper." 

**  In  explaining  the  Protestant  meaning  of  a  Real  Presence,  Gilbert 
nays.  "  In  this  sense,  it  is  innocent  of  itself,  and  may  be  lawfully  used: 
though,  perhaps,  it  were  more  cautiously  done  not  to  use  it,  since  ad- 
vantages have  been  taken  of  it  to  urge  it  farther  than  we  intend  it." 

X  Nos  vero  in  mysteriis  Carnum  Christi  adoramus  cum  Ambrosio. 
Answer  to  Bellarmine's  Apology.— When  it  is  recollected  that  St.  Am- 
brose upheld,  in  its  highest  Catholic  sense,  the  doctrine  of  Transub- 
Ptantiation,  the  strength  of  this  declaration  of  Bishop  Andrews  will 
be  the  more  fully  appreciated.  See  the  extract  which  I  have  given 
from  Clarke'i  Ecclesiastical  Literature,  vol.  i.  p.  88. — "  In  doctrine," 
says  this  learned  Protestant  writer,  "St.  Ambrose  is  all  that  Rome 
coijld  wish  him  " 


(     271     ) 

James  as  for  himself,  says,  "  We  believe  a  Presence  no 
less  true  than  that  which  you  yourself  believe."*  Arch- 
bishop Laud  drew  from  the  Reality  of  the  Presence  a  rea- 
son for  reverence  to  the  altar;  as  being",  "upon  this  ac- 
count, the  greatest  place  of  God's  residence  upon  earth;" 
and  Bishop  Forbes  declares  it  to  be  "  a  frightful  error  in 
those  rigid  Protestants  who  deny  that  Christ  is  to  be 
adored  in  the  Eucharist."!  Thus,  too,  Bishop  Cousin,  in 
his  History  of  Transubstantiation:-—"  Although  it  seems 
incredible,  that,  in  so  great  a  distance  of  place,  Christ's 
flesh  should  came  to  us  to  be  our  food,  yet  we  must  re^ 
member  howjnuch  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  above 
our  understanding,  and  how  foolish  it  is  to  measure  his 
immensity  by  our  capacity.":); 

Still  later,  in  the  time  of  Charles  II.,  we  find,  in  the 
Exposition  of  the  amiable  and  pious  Bishop  Ken,  the  fol- 


*  Pracsentiam  inquara,  eredimus,  nee  minus  quam  vos  veram. — An- 
swer to  Bcllarmine. 

t  Immanis  est  rigidorum  Protestantium  error  qui  negant  Christum 
in  Eucharistia  esse  adorandum  nisi  adoratione  interna  et  mentali, 
non  autem  externo  aliqtio  ritu,  &c.  &c. — De  Eucharist. 

%  The  testimonies  of  Hooker  and  Jeremy  Taylor,  on  this  subject, 
though  well  known,  are  of  too  much  importance  not  to  be  added  to 
the  above  authorities.  "  I  wish,"  says  Hooker,  "  men  would  give 
themselves  more  time  to  meditate  with  silence  on  what  we  have  in 
the  Sacrament,  and  less  to  dispute  on  the  manner  how.  Sith  we  all 
agree  that  Christ  by  the  Sacrament  doth  really  and  truly  perform  in 
us  his  promise,  why  do  we  vainly  trouble  ourselves  with  so  fierce 
contentions,  whether  by  CGnsubstantiation,  or  else  transubstantiation?" — 
Ecclesiastical  Polity. 

The  passage  from  Jeremy  Taylor  is  of  still  more  value,  as  being  not 
merely  a  record  of  the  opinion  of  so  eminent  a  divine,  on  this  point, 
but  also  a  vindication  of  the  Catholics  from  the  charge  of  idolatry  in 
their  adoration  of  the  Presence.  "The  object  of  their  (the  Catholics') 
adoration  in  the  Sacrament  is  the  only  true  and  eternal  God  hyposta- 
tically  united  with  his  holy  humanity,  which  humanity  they  believe 
actually  present  under  the  veil  of  the  Sacrament;  and  if  they  thought 
him  not  present,  they  are  so  far  from  worshipping  the  bread,  that  they 
profess  it  idolatry  to  do  so." — Liberty  of  Prophesying .  It  is  usual  to 
contrast  with  this  passage  of  Bishop  Taylor  another,  of  apparently 
different  import,  from  a  later  work  of  the  same  eminent  man,  entitled, 
il  Dissuasive  from  Popery."  But  those  who  compare  the  laboured  lan- 
guage in  which  his  latter  opinion  is  conveyed  with  the  simple,  clear 
enunciation  of  doctrine  just  cited,  can  little  doubt  as  to  which  of  the 
two  passages  they  would  select  as  the  true  record  of  his  views.  A 
man  who  expresses  himself  in  the  following  scholastic  fashion  can 
hardly  escape  the  suspicion  of  being  actuated  by  a  wish  to  deceive 
either  himself  or  others:—"  In  calling  it  Corpus  Spirituals  the  word 
Spirituale  is  not  a  substantial  predicate,  but  is  an  affirmation  of  the 
manner;  though,  in  disputation,  it  be  made  the  predicate  of  a  proposi- 
tion, and  the  opposite  member  of  a  distinction. "—Dissuasive  from  Po- 
pery. 


(     272     ) 

lowing  impressive  sentences: — "  Oh  God  Incarnate!  how 
thou  canst  give  us  thy  flesh  to  eat  and  thy  blood  to  drink ; 
how  thy  flesh  is  meat,  indeed  ;  how  thou,  who  art  in  hea- 
ven, art  present  on  the  altar,  I  can  by  no  means  explain; 
but  I  firmly  believe  it  all,  because  Thou  hast  said  it,  and 
I  firmly  rely  on  thy  love  and  thy  omnipotence  to  make 
good  thy  word,  though  the  manner  of  doing  it  I  cannot 
comprehend." 

The  Catholic  belief  of  a  sacrificial  offering  in  the  Eu- 
charist was  even  more  extensively,  at  the  period  of  which 
I  have  been  speaking,  prevalent  among  Protestants;  and, 
among  others,  the  profound  scholar,  Joseoh  Mede,  lent 
the  high  sanction  of  his  authority*  to  this  doctrine.  In 
answering  the  famous  Calvinist,  Twisse,  who.  had  said 
that  there  was  but  little  evidence  for  the  Eucharistic  Sa- 
crifice in  antiquity,  Mede  asks,  "  What  is  there  in  Chris- 
tianity for  which  more  antiquity  may  be  brought  than 
for  this?  I  speak  not  now  of  the  Fathers'  meaning 
(whether  I  guessed  rightly  at  it  or  not,)  but  in  general 
of  their  notion  of  a  Sacrifice  in  the  Eucharist.  If  there 
is  little  antiquity  in  this,  there  is  no  antiquity  for  any 
thing"  He  then  quotes,  as  confirmatory  of  his  own  opi- 
nion, the  candid  avowal  prefixed  by  Bishop  Morton  to  his 
work  on  the  Eucharist, — "  We  freely  acknowledge  the 
fact  that  there  is  frequent  mention  made  by  the  Ancient 
Fathers  of  the  bloodless  sacrifice  of  the  body  of  Christ  in 
the  Eucharist." 

Such  attestations  to  the  truth  of  the  Catholic  doctrine 


*  In  maintaining  a  proper  and  material  Sacrifice  in  the  Eucharist, 
Mede  was  followed  by  another  great  scholar,  in  the  same  walk  of 
learning,  Doctor  Grabe,  who  even  composed  a  Liturgy,  for  his  own 
use,  in  which  the  ancient  prayer,  founded  on  this  doctrine,  was  re- 
stored. So  great  a  concession  to  the  Catholics  could  not  but  excite 
alarm  among  their  opponents  ;  and,  accordingly,  this  opinion  of  Mede 
and  Grabe  was  strongly  censured,  as  an  acknowledgment  of  the  Sa- 
crifice of  the  Mass,  by  Buddeus,  Ittigius,  Deylingius,  and  other  conti- 
nental divines. 

Embarrassed  thus  between  the  fear  of  favouring  Popery,  on  one  side, 
and  the  irresistibly  strong  language  of  the  Fathers,  on  the  other,  some 
of  the  most  eminent  of  the  English  theologians,  and,  among  others, 
Cud  worth  and  Waterland,  while  they  deny  any  proper  or  material  Sa- 
crifice in  the  Eucharist,  go  so  far  as  to  admit  it  to  be  a  symbolical  feast 
upon  a  Sacrifice  ;  that  is  to  say,  (as  Waterland  explains  it.)  "  upon 
the  Grand  Sacrifice  itself  commemorated  under  certain  Symbols." 
Such  are  the  pitiable  evasions  of  evidence  and  authority  to  which 
Protestants  are  compelled,  by  their  schismatic  position,  to  have  re- 
course ! 


(     273      ) 

on  this  point,  particularly  from  a  Protestant  so  versed  in 
Christian  antiquity  as  Mede,  cannot  but  be  considered 
highly  important;*  and  the  following'  passage,  from  his 
letter  to  Twisse,  contains,  in  a  few  pregnant  sentences, 
the  whole  pith  of  what  I  have  been  endeavouring, 
throughout  these  pages,  to  inculcate: — "  Yet,  one  thing 
more :  it  is  no  time  now  to  slight  the  Catholic  consentrof 
the  Church  in  her  first  ages,  when  Socinianism  grows 
so  fast  on  the  rejection  thereof,  nor  to  abhor  so  much  the 
notion  of  a  Commemorative  Sacrifice  in  the  Eucharist 
when  we  shall  meet  with  those  who  will  deny  the  death 
of  Christ  upon  the  cross  to  have  been  a  sacrifice  for  sin. 
- — Verbum  intelligenti.  There  may  be  here  some  mas- 
ter of  importance.'5 

But,  to  return  to  my  parallel. — The  bitter  discord  be- 
tween the  Lutheran  and  Calvinist  Churches  which,  if  it 
did  not  produce,  at  least  deepened  and  prolonged  the  hor- 
rors of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  finds  no  unapt  counter- 
part in  the  long  struggle  between  the  Church  of  England 
asd  the  Puritans,  and  that  fierce  civil  war  which  ensued. 
This  similarity,  as  well  in  causes  as  effects,  on  both 
sides,  was  not  likely  to  escape  the  observation  of  Mr. 
Pusey,  who,  in  showing  how  much  of  the  irreligion  of  Ger- 
many is  to  be  attributed  to  the  English  infidel  writers  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  traces  the  origin  of  this  infide- 
lity, in  England  itself,  to  "  the  sunken  state  of  Christia- 
nity through  the  civil  wars,  and  the  controversies  of  im- 
bittered  parties."  Nothing,  indeed,  could  well  be  more 
calculated  to  bring  religion  itself  into  disrepute,  than 
thus  to  see  two  great  nations  torn  up  by  internal  faction 
and  hate,  on  points  of  difference,  to  which,  at  this  day,  no 
rational  mind  can  look  back,  without  a  mixed  feeling  of 
sorrow,  ridicule,  and  wonder. 

But,  however  absurd  were  most  of  the  doctrines  about 
which  the  German  Churches  wrangled  so  furiously,  they 

*  So  insurmountable  is  the  evidence  for  the  early  date  of  the  Sacrifice 
of  the  Mas?,  that.  Hospinian,  the  Protestant  historian,  is  forced  to  at- 
tribute to  the  devil  the  introduction  of  such  Popish  abominations  in 
the  very  lifetime,  as  he  owns,  of  the  Apostles  themselves! — "  Even  in 
that  first  age,"  says  this  writer,  "  whilst,  the  Apostles  were  still  alive, 
the  devil  had  the  audacity  to  lie  in  ambush,  under  this  Sacrament, 
more  than  under  that  of  Baptism,  and  gradually  seduced  men  from 
that  primitive  form."  Sebastianus  Francus,  too,  allows  that,  "  Im- 
mediately after  the  time  of  the  Apostles,  all  things  were  inverted, — the 
Lord's  Supper  teas  transformed  into  a  Sacrifice." 


(     274     ) 

were,  at  least,  subjects  of  speculation,  and,  as  opening  a 
field  for  the  gymnastics  of  argument,  were,  in  so  far, 
more  respectable  than  those  wretched  points  of  strife  so 
long  contested  between  the  Church  of  England  and  her 
Puritan  opponents.  Whether  the  clergy  ought  to  wear 
linen  surplices  and  caps  ;*  whether  steeples  ought  to  be 
surmounted  with  weathercocks  or  crosses;!  whether  the 
altar  should  stand  in  the  middle  of  the  church,  or  altar- 
wise,  with  one  side  to  the  wall ;  whether  it  be  becoming 
a  good  Christian  to  pay  reverence  to  the  altar,J  to  bow 
at  the  name  of  Jesus,  or  stand  up  at  the  Gloria  Patri;§ — 


*  There  appear  to  have  been  some,  even  among  the  reverend  stick- 
lers on  these  points,  who  had  the  good  sense  to  perceive  the  wretched 
nature  of  their  warfare.  Thus,  in  a  Memorial  presented  to  the  Bish- 
ops by  two  deprived  Dignitaries,  Sampson  and  Humfrey,  they  "  pro- 
test before  God,  what  a  bitter  grief  it  was  to  them,  that  there  should  be 
a  dissension  between  them  for  so  small  a  matter  as  woollen  and  linen  " — 
(meaning  the  cap  and  surplice.) — Strype,  Life  of  Parker. 

Not  content  with  the  disgrace  redounding  to  themselves  from  such 
trifling,  these  divines,  with  the  usual  profaneness  of  party-theologians, 
were  for  enlisting  God  himself  in  their  war  about  "  woollen  and  li- 
nen." In  a  letter  written  by  Bishop  Sands,  in  1566,  he  says,  "  Disputes 
are  now  on  foot  concerning  the  Popish  vestments,  whether  they  should 
be  used  or  not ;  but  God  will  put  an  end  to  these  things.'" 

t  In  a  letter  to  Peter  Martyr,  Bishop  Jewel  thus  writes: — "  The  con- 
troversy about  Crosses  is  now  grown  very  warm.  You  would  hardly  be- 
lieve how  mad  some,  who  seemed  wise  men,  are  in  a  foolish  matter." 
He  adds,  farther  on,  "  'Tis  come  to  that  pass,  that  the  silver  and  tin 
crosses  which  we  had  every  where  broke  down,  must  be  set  up  again, 
or  we  must  leave  our  bishoprics." 

The  queen  (Elizabeth)  was  so  far  attached  to  the  ancient  faith  as  to 
wish  to  preserve  some  of  these  vestiges  of  it ;  and  we  are  told  by  Hey- 
lin  that  one  of  her  chaplains,  "  speaking  less  reverently,  in  a  sermon 
preached  before  her,  of  the  Sign  of  the  Cross,  was  called  to  aloud  by 
her  out  of  her  closet-window,  and  commanded  to  retire  from  that  un- 
godly digression,  and  return  to  his  text." — Hist,  of  Reformation. 

X  As  a  specimen  of  their  mode  of  treating  these  points,  I  shall  here 
give  a  few  sentences  from  a  pamphlet  of  that  period,  on  the  subject  of 
reverence  to  the  altar.  In  a  treatise,  entitled,  M  Reasons  for  bowing 
to  the  Altar,"  the  author  had  contended,  on  the  grounds  afterwards 
taken  up  by  Archbishop  Laud,  that  "  as  the  Chair  of  State  is  always 
to  be  honoured,  though  the  person  of  the  Royal  Majesty  be  not  seen 
there,  so  is  God's  Board  ever  to  have  due  reverence,  and  God,  who  is 
there  perpetually,  is  always  to  be  bowed  to,"  &c.  &c.  To  this  treatise 
an  answer  was  published  by  some  Puritan,  in  which  are  the  following 
sentences.  "  First,  therefore,  let  them  prove  that  God  hath  and  ought 
to  have  a  seat  in  every  Church."  Again,  "  This  gentleman  must 
prove  that  God  sits  personally  sometimes  on  the  table."  The  conclu- 
sion to  which  the  Puritan  comes,  at  last,  is,  "Therefore,  as  God  is 
always  sitting  on  the  table,  they  ought  not  to  bow  or  do  any  reverence 
to  it  at  all." 

§  In  a  letter  from  the  sturdy  Puritan,  Twisse,  to  Mr.  Mede,  he  says, 
"  You  bade  me  stand  up  at  Gloria  Patri;  and  it  was  in  such  a  tone 
too,  that  you  had  the  mastery  of  me,  I  know  not  how.    I  profess  I 


(     275     ) 

such  were  a  few  of  the  mighty  questions  at  issue  between 
the  parties;  such  the  levers  of  discord  by  which  Pro- 
testant England  was  heaved  from  her  very  foundations! 

At  the  same  time  that  controversies  like  these  were 
bringing  ridicule  on  religion  by  their  frivolousness,  the 
Antinomian  tenets,*  then  prevalent  among  all  ranks,  still 
more  disgraced  it  by  their  immorality;!  while,  in  that 
infinite  power  of  subdivision  into  new  sects  and  denomina- 
tions, in  which  Protestantism,  at  all  times,  luxuriates, 
never  did  she  half  so  unboundedly  revel  as  at  that  truly 
sectarian  crisis.]:  "  England  (says  a  preacher  before  the 
Commons,  in  1647)  was  never  so  bad  as  in  a  time  of  Re- 
formation. Witness  the  numerous  and  numberless  in- 
crease of  errors  and  heterodox  opinions,  even  to  blasphemy, 
among  us !  The  world  once  wondered  to  see  itself  turned 
Arian.  England  may  now  wonder  to  see  itself  turned 
Anabaptist,  Antinomian, §  Arminian,  Socinian,  Arian,  Anti- 

little  looked  for  such  entertainment  at  your  hands.  My  wife's  father, 
Dr.  Moore,  was  Bishop  Bilson's  chaplain,  and  most  respected  by  him 
of  any  chaplain  that  ever  he  had,  and  he  a  cathedral  man,  too;  but 
they  could  vevcr  get  him  to  stand  up  at  Gloria  Patri." 

*  In  a  pamphlet  published  at  that  time  by  one  Archer,  catted  "Com- 
fort for  Believers  in  their  Sins  and  Troubles,"  the  doctrine  origin- 
ally held  both  by  Luther  and  Calvin,  that  God  was  the  direct  author 
of  sin,  is  thus  boldly  put  forward  : — "  We  may  safely  say  that  God  is, 
and  hath  a  hand  in,  and  is  the  author  of  the  sinfulness  of  his  people.1' 
After  quoting  the  opinions  of  some  divines,  who  "  have  erred,"  as  he 
says,  "  in  making  sin  more  of  the  creature  and  itself,  and  less  from 
God  than  it  is,"  he  adds,  "This  opinion  gives  not  enough  to  God  in 
sin.  Let  us  embrace  and  profess  the  truth,  and  not  fear  to  say  that  of 
God  which  he  in  his  Holy  Book,  saith  of  himself,  namely,  '  that  of  Him 
and  from  His  hand  is  not  only  the  thing  that  is  sinful,  but  the  pravity 
and  sinfulness  of  it.'" 

\  What  the  effects  of  such  tenets  must  be  upon  the  minds  of  ordinary 
and  ignorant  persons  may  be  concluded  from  their  demoralizing  in- 
fluence upon  those  of  a  superior  class.  We  are  assured  by  Bishop 
Burnet  (Sum.  of  Affairs  before  Reform.)  it  was  the  opinion  of  Cromwell 
that  "  the  moral  laws  were  only  binding  in  ordinary  cases  ;  but  that, 
upon  extraordinary  ones,  these  might  be  superseded, — he  and  that  set 
of  men  (adds  Burnet)  justifying  their  ill  actions  from  the  practice  of 
Ehud  and  Jael,  Sampson  and  David." 

Most  truly  has  Dr.  Hey  asserted,  in  his  Theological  Lectures,  that 
"  the  misinterpretation  of  Scriptures  brought  on  the  miseries  of  the 
Civil  Wars." 

X  There  was,  in  Cromwell's  time,  a  Committee  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons appointed,  to  "  consider  of  the  particular  enumeration  of  damn- 
able heresies.    What  a  Report  it  must  have  been  ! 

§  Nothing  can  be  imagined  more  ruinous  to  all  true  notions  of  re- 
ligion and  morality  than  was  the  doctrine  of  Justification,  as  asserted 
by  the  high  Calvinists,  of  that  period.  All  the  worst  consequences,  in- 
deed, that  can  arise  from  pride  and  cruelty  united  were  sure  to  be  en- 
gendered,  in  their  most  odious  form,  by  a  creed  which  held  that  there 


(     276     ) 

Scripturist,  what  not ! — Alas,  what  were  Ceremonies  to 
these  things  but  (as  Calvin  once  called  them)  '  tolerabiles 
ineptise,'  children's  sport,  in  comparison !  How  much  less 
an  evil  was  it,  think  ye,  to  bow  at  the  name  of  Jesus 
than  to  deny,  to  blaspheme  the  name  of  Jesus?  (2  Pet 
ii,  1.") 

"  Would  it  be  believed  (said  the  great  Hebraist,  Dr; 
Lightfoot,*  who  also  preached  before  the  House  of  Com- 
mons) that,  in  so  short  a  time,  after  so  solemn  an  obliga- 
tion, and  the  Parliament  that  brought  on  the  Covenant 
sitting,  the  Covenant  should  be  so  forgot  as  we  dolefully 
see  daily  that  it  is  1  We  vowed  against  Error,  Heresy  and 
Schism,  and  swore  to  the  God  of  Truth  and  Peace  to  the 
utmost  of  our  power  to  extirpate  them  and  to  root  them 
out.  These  stones  and  walls  and  pillars  were  witnesses 
of  our  solemn  engagement.  And  now,  if  the  Lord  should 
come  to  inquire  what  we  have  done  according  to  this 
vow  and  Covenant,  I  am  amazed  to  think  what  the  Lord 


was  no  one  sin,  however  small,  that  did  not  deserve  eternal  torments, 
nor  no  number  of  sins,  however  great,  that  could  deprive  the  Elect  of 
eternal  happiness. — See  the  small  volume  of  VVitsius,  entitled  J3ni- 
madcersiones  Irenicce,  in  which,  whatever  grace  can  be  thrown  round 
euch  blasphemies  by  the  style  in  which  they  are  stated,  has  been  lent 
to  them  by  the  elegant  Latinity  of  this  writer.  Among  the  high 
Calvinist  doctrines  of  which,  (though  held,  as  he  admits,  by  "  Viri 
docti "  of  his  sect,)  Witsius  himself  disapproves,  are  the  following — that 
God  can  see  no  sin  in  believers,  that  they  contract  no  guilt  by  new 
crimes,  nor  can  any  crimes  lie  heavy  on  their  consciences, — that  David 
himself  never  complained  of  the  weight  of  sin  upon  his  mind,  &.c.—il  Nee 
Davidem  ex  vero  de  peccati  sibi  incumbentis  onere  conquestum  esse." 
Among  the  opinions  which  Witsius  fully  adopts  are  such  as  the  fol- 
lowing:— Because  believers  are  just  through  the  justice  of  Christ,  they 
arc  equally  just  with  Christ  himself, — the  justice  of  the  Elect  being  the 
very  justice  itself  of  Christ.     "Quiajusti  sunt  per  justitiam  Christi, 

seque  justos  esse  ac  ipse  Christus quum  justitja  Electorum 

sit  ipsissima  Christi  justitia." 

The  manner  in  which  God's  tolerance  of  the  sins  of  the  Elect  is  ex- 
plained by  these  fanatics  affords  a  highly  characteristic  sample  of  their 
presumption  and  impiety.  God  sees,  they  allow,  the  sins  of  believers, 
but  does  not  see  them  with  an  «-ye  to  condemnation  or  punishment 
the  stain  still  remains  in  his  sight,  but  without  the  guilt.—"  Non  in- 

tuetur  sic  ut  propter  ilia  condemnare  eos  instituat tollitur 

(peccatum)  non  quo  ad  maculum  sed  ad  reatum."  To  illustrate  this 
relative  position  of  God  and  his  Elect,  Charnock  compares  it  to  an  ac- 
count book,  in  which  the  old  score,  though  marked  off,  and  no  longer 
due,  is  still  legible.—"  Debitum  tale  legi  fortasse  potest ;  exigi  non 
potest." 

*  We  have  here  another  instance  of  a  profound  inquirer  into  Christian 
antiquity  bearing  full  testimony  to  the  truth  of  a  great  Catholic  tenet  ; 
—this  learned  man  being  of  opinion,  with  the  Catholics,  that  the  keys 
were  given  to  Peter  exclusively  of  the  other  Apostles. 


(     277     ) 

Would  find  amongst  us.  Would  he  not  find  ten  schisms 
now  for  one  then,  twenty  heresies  now  for  one  at  that 
time,  and  forty  errors  now  for  one  when  we  swore  against 
them]" 

The  very  same  results,  both  as  regards  the  distracting* 
varieties  of  heresy,  and  the  corrupting  influence  of  An- 
tinomian  doctrines,  appear  from  the  avowals  and  lamenta* 
tions  of  most  of  the  eminent  writers  of  Germany,  to  have 
taken  place  at  the  same  period  in  that  equally  sect-ridden 
country.  Indeed,  the  parallel  between  the  two  cases  is 
in  this  instance,  as  in  most  others,  complete.  "The 
Church  of  God  (says  a  German  writer  quoted  by  Walch) 
is  surrounded  with  a  thousand  troubles;  the  wolves  are 
quartered  in  the  fold;  almost  every  one  now  opposes  the 
truth;  and  by  false  preachers  the  world  is  deceived.  The 
Anabaptist's  guile,  the  Quaker's  demure  mood,  the  Chiliast 
fanaticism,  and  Bohme's  giddy  spirit  begins,  in  these 
times,  again  to  renew  itself.  The  Pietist  crew  storms 
in  perforce.  These,  these  are  they  who  would  regenerate 
the  world  by  their  false  holiness,  who  bring  God's  house 
into  ten  thousand  ills,  and  sow  in  God's  field  the  filth  of 
Belial." 

"  The  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone  (says  the 
pious  Spener)  is  a  holy  doctrine,  and  we  should  not  think 
it  too  much  to  shed  our  blood  for  it.  But  when  the  great 
careless  multitude  so  shamefully  abuse  it,  that,  even 
while  continuing  in  sin  and  its  service,  they  still  console 
themselves  that  they  shall  attain  eternal  life  by  faith 
alone,  will  live  and  die  in  dependence  upon  this, — then 
is  such  doctrines  (which  many  entertain  in  order  that 
they  may  still  indulge  their  fleshly  mind  and  their  care- 
less security)  not  a  true  but  a  false  doctrine;  for  it  is  a 

shameful  perversion  of  the  truth And  so  it  is 

with  other  points.  So  that  we  have  not  only  ground  to 
complain  of  evil  lives,  but  that,  with  all  these  discourses 
about  faith,  very  little  faith  is  left,  nay  that  most  are 
wholly  ignorant  what  faith  is." 


24 


(     278     ) 


CHAPTER  L. 

Parallel  between  the  Protestantism  of  Germany  and  of  England  conti- 
nued.—Infidel  writers.— Sceptical  English  Divines— South,  Sherlock, 
and  Burnet. — Extraordinary  work  of  the  latter. — Socinianism  of 
Hoadly,  Balguy,  Hey,  &c— Closing  stage  of  the  Parallel.— Testimo- 
nies to  the  increasing  irreligion  of  England. 

Such  a  course  of  affairs,  moral  and  theological,  as  I 
have  been  describing,  could  not  but  lead  in  the  end  to 
fatal  results;  and  though  of  the  two  countries  destined 
thus  to  one  common  fate,  Germany  has  been  the  more 
rapid  in  reaching  the  catastrophe,  England  was  the  first 
to  feel  and  give  the  downward  impulse.  The  natural 
fruits  of  all  this  abuse  and  degradation  of  religion  soon 
manifested  themselves,  in  the  latter  country,  by  a  series 
of  the  most  deliberate  and  systematic  attacks  upon  Chris- 
tianity that  have  ever  been  hazarded  by  infidels  since 
first  the  light  of  the  Gospel  broke  on  this  world.  With 
such  vigour  were  these  impious  assaults  carried  on,  that, 
in  the  successive  productions,  from  the  year  1650,  of 
Hobbes,  Toland,  Collins,  Morgan,  Woolston,  Tindall,  and 
Chubb,  all  the  arguments  of  Deism  may  be  said  to  have 
been  exhausted  ; — Voltaire  himself  having  been  indebted 
for  the  keenest  of  his  Anti-Christian  weapons  to  the  de- 
structive armoury  of  these  acute  English  free-thinkers. 

To  them  also,  far  more  than  to  the  French  Philosophers, 
or  even  to  the  example  of  the  infidel  court  of  Frederick 
the  Great,  has  Germany  to  attribute  the  impulse  given  to 
her  literature  at  the  commencement  of  the  eighteenth 
century, — an  impulse,  seconded  but  too  willingly  by  her 
own  Rationalizing  divines,  and  ending,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  the  almost  total  extinction  of  her  religion.  Thus,  by 
a  signal  retribution,  has  Germany  had,  by  her  example, 
been  the  means  of  Protestantizing  England,  so  England 
has,  in  return,  helped  to  unchristian ize  Germany* 

44  *The  fatal  pre-eminence  of  being  foremost  in  the  ranks  of  infidelity 
is  thus  assigned  to  the  English  writers  by  Mosheim  : — "  There  is  no 
country  in  Europe  where  infidelity  has  not  exhibited  its  poison  ;  and 
scarcely  any  denomination  of  Christians  among  whom  we  may  not 
find  several  persons  who  either  aim  at  the  total  extinction  of  all  re- 


(     2VJ     ) 

I  have  already  remarked  that  the  Reformed  Church,  <n\ 
the  continent,  from  being  much  less  concentrated  than  the 
Lutheran,  as  well  as  less  accustomed  to  the  restraints  of 
fixed  formularies  of  faith,  lay  proportionately  more  open 
to  the  inroads  of  belief;  and,  in  that  sort  of  security 
against  innovation  which  Confessions  and  Articles  afford, 
the  Church  of  England  was  no  less  strongly  intrenched 
than  the  Lutheran.  Even  into  this  preserve  of  orthodoxy, 
however,  strict  as  was  the  "  divinity  that  hedged  it,"  the 
effects  of  the  reaction  produced  by  the  excesses  of  Puri- 
tanism began  visibly  to  extend  themselves ; — insomuch 
that,  before  the  close  of  that  century,  the  University  of 
Oxford  had  to  condemn,  by  a  Decree  of  the  Vice-Chan- 
cellor,  as  "  false,  impious  and  heretical,"  certain  doctrines, 
concerning  the  Godhead,  maintained  publicly  by  a  Dean 
of  St.  Paul's!* 

The  controversy  in  which  this  Decree  had  its  origin  is 
memorable  in  the  annals  of  English  theology;  and  not  the 
less  so  from  the  fact  that  Dr.  South,  with  whom  the  Uni- 
versity sided,  on  the  occasion,  was  as  little  orthodox,  on 
the  subject,  as  his  Trit-heist  opponent ;  for  while  the  latter 
(Doctor  Sherlock)  maintained  that  the  three  Persons 
in  the  Trinity  are  three  distinct  minds  or  spirits,f  and 
three  individual  substances,  Doctor  South  destroyed  the 

ligion,  or  at  least  endeavour  to  invalidate  the  authority  of  the  Chris- 
tian system.  Some  carry  on  these  unhappy  attempts  in  an  open  man- 
ner ;  others  under  the  mask  of  a  Christian  profession  ;  but  no  where 
have  these  enemies  of  the  purest  religion  and  consequently  of  mankind, 
whom  it  was-intended  to  render  pure  and  happy,  appeared,  with  more  ef- 
frontery and  insolence  than  under  the  governments  of  Great  Britain  and 
the  United  Provinces.  In  England  more  especially  it  is  not  uncommon 
to  meet  with  books  in  which  not  only  the  doctrines  of  the  Gospel,  but 
also  the  perfections  of  the  Deity,  and  the  solemn  obligations  of  piety 
and  virtue  are  impudently  called  into  question  and  turned  into  deri- 
sion." 

*  Doctor  Sherlock.  The  Decree  was  levelled  not  directly  at  Sherlock 
himself,  but  at  a  Clergyman  of  Oxford  who  had  preached  his  doctrine. 

f  Doctor  Wallis  represents  Sherlock  as  being  of  opinion  that  the 
Three  Spirits  are  as  "  really  distinct  as  Peter,  James,  and  John,  and 
one  God  only,  as  they  are  mutually  conscious,"  Wallis  himself,  in 
explaining  his  own  view  of  the  doctrine,  is  fully  as  Sabellian  as  South. 
"  Whereas  Persona  (he  says,)  in  its  true  and  ancient  sense,  before  the 
schoolmen  put  this  forced  sense  upon  it  [i.e.  of  a  distinct  intelligent 
being,]  did  not  signify  a  man  simply,  but  one  under  such  and  such  and 
such  circumstances,  or  qualifications ;  so  that  the  same  man,  if  capable 
of  being  qualified  thus  and  thus  and  thus,  might  sustain  three  persons, 
and  these  three  persons  be  the  same  man." — Letters  concerning  the 
Trinity.  In  another  place,  this  celebrated  divine  tells  us  gravely,  that 
'!  there  are  three  somswhats"  in  the  Trinity. 


(     2S0     ) 

triple  Personality  altogether,  and,  in  supposing-  but  one 
substance,  with  something  like  three  modes  of  existence, 
fell  into  downright  Sabellianism. 

The  language,  indeed,  of  this  latter  sprightly  divine, 
on  more  than  one  solemn  topic,  would  not  have  been  ill- 
suited  to  the  present  Rationalist  meridian  of  Germany; 
and,  on  the  subject  of  the  Book  of  Revelations,  not  even 
Semler  himself,  in  all  the  wantonness  of  his  school,  has 
ventured  to  express  himself  so  irreverently  as  did  this 
chaplain  of  the  Protestant  champion,  William  III.,  who 
speaks  of  it,  in  one  of  his  Sermons,  as  "  a  mysterious  ex- 
traordinary book,  which,  perhaps,  the  more  'tis  studied,  the 
less  'tis  understood,  as  generally  rinding  a  man  cracked 
or  making  him  so  !"* 

Nearly  at  the  same  time  with  the  discreditable  con- 
troversy just  mentioned,  appeared  another  and  still  more 
signal  proof  of  the  rapid  advances  of  scepticism,  not  merely 
within  the  hallowed  pale  of  Subscription  itself,  but,  still 
more  extraordinarily,  on  the  very  highways  of  preferment 
and  patronage.  Doctor  Thomas  Burnet,  the  master  of 
the  Charter-House,t  and,  as  was  supposed,  destined  to 

*  Sermons. — While  South  himself  indulges  in  such  license,  he  ac- 
cuses Sherlock  of  still  greater  irreverence  ;  and  denounces  his  Treatise 
of  the  Knowledge  of  Christ  as  "  a  book  fraught  with  reflections  upon 
God's  justice,  with  reference  to  Christ's  satisfaction  ;"  adding  "  that  it 
may  deservedly  pass  for  a  blasphemous  libel  on  both."  Nor  can  it  be 
denied  that  there  are  passages  in  Sherlock's  Treatise  which  fully  war- 
rant this  description  of  it.  For  instance,  Dr.  Owen,  the  famous  Cal- 
vinist,  having  asserted  "  that  in  Christ  God  hath  manifested  the 
naturalness  of  this  righteousness  unto  him,  in  that  it  was  impossible 
that  it  should  be  diverted  from  sinners,  without  the  interposing  of  a 
propitiation,"  Dr.  Sherlock,  in  ridiculing  this  doctrine,  gives  way  to 
the  following  indecent  language : — "  That  is  (for  I  can  make  no  better 
of  it)  being  glutted  and  satiated  with  the  blood  of  Christ,  God  may  pardon 
as  many  and  as  great  sinners  as  he  pleases  without  fear  of  the  least  im- 
putation of  justice:''  Again,  "  The  sum  of  which  is,  that  God  is  all  love 
and  patience,  when  he  hath  taken  his  fill  of  revenge.  As  others  use  to  say, 
that  '  the  Devil  is  very  good  when  he  is  pleased:  " 

t  The  example  of  orthodoxy  set  by  these  three  responsible  divines 
(South,  a  Rector  and  King's  Chaplain,  Sherlock,  a  Dean  of  St.  Paul's, 
and  Burnet,  Master  of  the  Charter-House)  gave  birth  to  a  lively  ballad, 
of  which  I  cannot  resist  the  temptation  ofquoting  a  few  stanzas  : 

"  When  Preb.  replied,  like  thunder, 
And  roared  out  'twas  no  wonder, 
Since  Gods  the  Dean  had  three,  sir, 
And  more  by  two  than  he,  sir; 
For  he  had  sot  but  one, 
For  he  had,  &x.  &c. 


(     281      ) 

succeed  Tiliotson  in  the  see  of  Canterbury,  published 
about  this  time  a  work  called  "  Archaeologiaj  Philoso- 
phical," in  which,  giving  it  as  his  opinion  that  Philosophy 
should  be  made  the  interpreter  of  Scripture  (the  masked 
battery  of  all  infidels,)  he  proceeds  to  inquire  into  the 
Mosaic  history  of  the  Creation  of  the  World;  and,  bring- 
ing* forward  every  argument  that  a  learned  scepticism 
could  suggest  to  throw  doubt  upon  the  credibility  of  the 
narrative,  treats  the  whole  with  a  degree  of  sarcasm  and 
ridicule  which  would  be,  even  in  a  lay  infidel,  offensive. 
The  principle  on  which  he  attempts  to  account  for  and 
reconcile  the  presumed  falsehood  of  this  history, — namely, 
that  Moses,  in  all  the  details  of  his  Cosmogony,  thought 
only  of  adapting  himself  to  the  prejudices  of  the  vulgar,* 
— is  the  very  same  that  has,  in  later  times,  been  made 
subservient  to  the  explaining  away  of  most  of  the  essence 
of  Christianity.  Nor,  even  in  this  ulterior  object,  was 
the  Reverend  Doctor  much  behind  the  age  of  Rationalism, 
as  we  find  him  citing,  in- support  of  the  policy  of  thus 
humouring  the  false  fancies  of  the  vulgar,  the  examples 
of  Christ  and  the  Apostles,  who,  he  says,  in  speaking  on 
such  points  as  a  Future  Life,  the  Last  Judgment,  and  the 
nature  of  Heaven  and  Hell,  did  not  express  themselves 
accurately,  but,  on  the  contrary,  adapted  their  language 
to  what  they  knew  to  be  the  most  popular  imaginations  on 
these  subjects.  As  a  specimen  of  the  freedom  with  which 
this  divine  handles  such  topics,  I  shall  merely  mention 
that,  after  demonstrating,  as  he  supposes,  the  physical 
impossibility  of  light  having  been  created  on  the  first 

••  Now,  while  the  two  were  raging, 
And  in  dispute  engaging, 
The  Master  of  the  Charter 
Said  both  had  caught  a  Tartar, 

For  Gods,  sir,  there  were  none,  &x. 

"  That  all  the  Books  of  Moses 
Were  nothing  but  supposes  ; 
That  he  deserved  rebuke,  sir, 
Who  wrote  the  Pentateuch,  sir — 
'Twas  nothing  but  a  sham,  &c. 

11  That  as  for  Father  Adam, 
With  Mrs.  Eve,  his  madam, 
An  1  what  the  Serpent  spoke,  sir, 
'Twas  nothing  but  a  joke,  sir, 
And  well-invented  flam,"  &c. 

*  Scripturam  Sacram  ad  populi  captum  accomodare. 
24* 


(     282     ) 

day,  he  suggests  that  Moses  might  have  thought  it  advisa- 
ble to  begin  his  Hexameron  with  this  task,  lest  it  should 
seem  "as  if  God  were  working  three  days  in  the  dark."!* 
The  effects  of  the  change  produced  in  the  actual  power 
of  the  Crown,  at  the  Revolution,  by  substituting  patron- 
age and  the  force  of  influence  for  the  bare  sceptre  of  pre- 
rogative, have  been  felt  in  none  of  those  channels  through 
which  the  Royal  Pactolus  has  since  continued  to  flow, 
more  abundantly  than  in  the  Church  : — and  thus,  in  addi- 
tion to  whatever  guard  against  innovation  the  pen-fold  of 
Subscription  may  have  supplied,  a  new  and  still  more 
powerful  incentive  to  orthodoxy  has  been  found  in  the 
grandeur  and  opulence  that  glitter  within  its  pale.  Still 
so  prone  and  irresistible  is  the  tendency  of  Protestantism 
to  strip  itself  of  every  shred  of  doctrine  and  reason  away- 
all  mysteries,  that,  notwithstanding  the  countless  world- 
ly advantages  which  a  Church,  rich  in  such  bribes,  holds 
out,  not  only  has  lay  dissent  from  her  communion  in- 
creased to  such  an  extent  as  threatens,  before  long,  to 
*'  push  her  from  her  stool,"  but  even  her  own  divines,  the 
very  sentinels  of  the  Establishment,  have  gone  on  under- 
mining the  foundations  of  her  faith,  and  surrendering, 
one  by  one,  its  strongest  outposts,  as  if  to  prepare  her  for 


*  Ne  Deus  videretur  per  triduum  opnrari  in  tenebris.— He  remarks 
that,  on  some  of  the  days,  God  is  represented  as  doing  very  little, 
and  accounts  for  this  disproportionate  activity  by  the  supposition  that 
Moses,  intending,  from  the  first,  to  institute  the  Sabbath,  thus  pur- 
posely spun  out  the  task,  so  as  to  make  God  rest  on  the  seventh  day. 
The  part  of  his  work  that  gave  most  offence  was  an  imaginary  dia- 
logue between  Eve  and  the  Serpent,  and  this,  in  a  second  edition  of 
his  book,  published  at  Amsterdam,  he  omitted;  as  well  as  his  irreverent 
remark  on  the  sewing  of  the  rig-leaves  together: — "  Behold  the  first  ru- 
diments of  the  tailor's  art!*'   En  primordia  artis  sutoriae  ! 

Such  was  the  decorous  divine  who,  but  for  this  unlucky  production, 
would  have  succeeded,  it  was  supposed,  Tillotson  as  Archbi  oop  of 
Canterbury! — Tillotson  himself  was,  it  is  well  known,  suspected  of 
more  than  a  leaning  to  Socinianism,  and  the  laudatory  terms  in  which 
he  speaks  of  the  learning  and  candour  of  the  followers  of  that  creed 
might  well  induce  such  a  suspicion.  However  successfully,  indeed, 
he  may  be  thought  to  have  cleared  himself  from  the  imputation,  it  is 
no  small  proof  of,  at  least,  the  tendency  of  some  of  his  doctrine  in  that 
direction,  that  Leslie,  in  one  of  his  controversial  works,  was  able  to 
pass  off  whole  pages  of  Tillotson's  Sermon  on  Hell  Torments,  as  from 
the  pen  of  a  Socinian  writer.  "  Because  you  could  not  (says  Emlyn, 
in  his  answer  to  Leslie)  raise  odium  enough  from  their  own  (the  So- 
cinians')  writings,  you  pick  up  any  odious  thing,  even  out  of  the 
writings  of  their  very  opposers,  and  then  make  your  Socinian  to  speak 
it,  and  this  without  naming  the  author  from  whom  you  took  tiie 
passage." 


(     283     ) 

that  fall,  in  which  her  sisters  of  Germany  have  but  a 
short  space  preceded  her. 

J\Tor  is  it  so  much  to  the  Burnets  and  the  Whistons, 
who,  from  too  much  honesty,  overleap  the  Church  fence, 
as  to  the  Hoadlys  and  Balguys,  who  keep  insidiously 
within  it,  that  the  main  mischief  is  to  be  attributed.  Of 
the  success  of  the  two  last-mentioned  divines  in  Soci- 
nianizing  the  Church  of  England  Sacraments,  I  have  al- 
Teady  more  than  once  spoken ;  and  though  they  did  not 
.openly  carry  the  principle  any  farther,  the  close  friend- 
ship which  Hoadly  maintained  with  Samuel  Clarke,  as 
-.well  as  the  earnestness  with  which,  in  his  Life  of  that 
.distinguished  man,  he  defends  him  against  the  charge  of 
having  retracted  his  heretical  notions,  concerning  the 
'Trinity,  leave  little  doubt  that  the  Bishop's  own  views  on 
that  subject  were,  at  least,  equally  heterodox. 

The  language  of  Doctor  Balguy,  in  its  anti-mysterious 
and  rationalizing  tendency,  was  even  more  explicit  than 
that  of  his  friend  and  patron,  the  Bishop.  The  very  ar- 
gument, indeed,  advanced  by  the  infidel,  Toland,  to  prove 
that  Christianity  is  not  mysterious, — namely,  that  it  pro- 
fesses to  be  a  revelation,  and  that  any  thing  revealed  can 
no  longer  be  mysterious, — is  thus  brought  forward,  at  se- 
cond-hand, by  the  beneficed  Dr.  Balguy :  "  It  is  no  ways 
essential  to  a  mystery  to  be  ill  understood :  the  word  evi- 
dently refers  to  men's  past  ignorance,  not  their  present. 
In  this  sense,  the  revelation  of  a  mystery  destroys  the 
very  being  of  it.  The  moment  it  becomes  an  article  of 
belief,  it  is  mysterious  no  longer."* 

This  is  manifestly  mere  Socinianism  in  disguise  ; — for, 
to  say  that  the  moment  a  doctrine  becomes  an  article  of 
belief,  it  is  mysterious  no  longer,  is  but  another  mode  of 
asserting  the  main  position  of  the  Rationalist,  that,  if  a 
dostrine  is  mysterious,  it  cannot  become  an  article  of  be- 
lief. The  whole  of  Dr.  Balguy's  language,  on  such  sub- 
jects, is  of  the  same  insidious  description ;  though  occa- 
sionally, as  in  the  following  passage  of  one  of  his  Charges, 
the  mask  is  somewhat  more  boldly  lifted : — "  It  is  our  busi- 
ness (he  says)  not  to  swell  out  the  slender  articles  of  belief 
contained  in  Scripture  by  mere  human  inventions ;  and, 
least  of  all,  to  censure  and  persecute  our  brethren,  per- 

*  Discourses ',  hy  T.  Balgvy,  D.  D, 


(     284     ) 

haps  for  no  other  reason  than  because  their  nonsense  and 
ours  wear  a  different  dress."* 

As  a  clew  to  the  meaning  insinuated  in  these  suspi- 
cious sentences,  I  shall  add  another  remarkable  passage 
of  the  same  clever  divine,  in  which  his  admission  of  the 
Pagan  origin  assigned  by  Priestly  and  others  to  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  is  fir  too  clear  to  be  mistaken : — "  A 
man  will  have  no  cause  to  fear  that  he  believes  too  little, 
if  he  believes  enough  to  make  him  repent  and  obey.  If 
we  are  firmly  persuaded  that  Jesus  was  sent  from  Godrf 
if  we  are  sincerely  desirous  to  obey  his  laws,  and  hope  for 
salvation  in  and  through  him,  it  will  never  be  laid  to  our 
charge  that  we  have  misconceived  certain  metaphysical 
niceties,  which  have  been  drawn  from  obscure  passages 
of  Scripture  by  the  magical  operation  of  Pagan  philo- 
sophy." 

Such,  all  but  avowal  of  the  worst  principles  of  Socian- 
ism,  from  men  so  high  in  the  Church,  both  from  station 
and  talent,  sufficiently  prepares  us  for  what  otherwise 
would  have  seemed  wholly  incredible, — an  express  prof- 
fer of  the  hand  of  fellowship  to  the  whole  body  of  So- 
cinians,  from  no  less  a  quarter  than  the  chair  of  the  Nor- 
risian  professor  of  Theology,  at  Cambridge  ! — In  one  of 
his  otherwise  most  valuable  Lectures,  the  late  Dr.  Hey 
thus  speaks: — "We  and  the  Socinians  are  said  to  differ, 
— but  about  what]  Not  about  morality  or  about  natural 
religion.  We  differ  only  about  what  we  do  not  understand, 
and  about  what  is  to  be  done  on  the  part  of  God ;  and  if 
we  allowed  one  another  to  use  expessions  at  will  {and 
what  great  matter  could  that  be  in  what  might  be  called 
unmeaning  icords?)  we  need  never  be  on  our  guard 
against  each  other. "J 

In  these  few  sceptical  sentences, — in  the  chill  and 
deadly  air  of  Indifferentism  that  breathes  through  them, 
we  recognise  that  last  stage  of  a  declining  religion,  be- 
fore (as  exemplified  so  signally  in  the  instance  of  Ger- 

*  Charge  to  the  Clergy  of  an  Archdeaconry. 

t  It  is  plain  that  the  Mahometans,  who  believe  Christ  to  have  been 
a  prophet  M  sent  from  God,"  must,  on  the  principle  here  laid  down,  be 
considered  as  orthodox. 

\  The  same  learned  Lecturer,  in  speaking  of  the  custom,  as  he  calls 
it,  in  Scripture,  of  mentioning  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  together, 
says,  "  Did  I  pretend  to  understand  what  I  say,  I  might  be  a  Trit heist 
or  an  infidel ;  but  1  could  not  worship  the  one  true  God,  and  acknow- 
ledge Jesus  Christ  to  be  the  Lord  of  all." 


(     285     ) 

many,)  it  sinks  to  the  flat  level  of  total  unbelief; — that 
stage,  where  Heresy,  weary  of  its  own  caprices  and 
changes,  and  no  longer  fed  by  the  false  stimulus  which 
the  strife  of  controversy  once  lent,  sinks  hopelessly  into 
the  collapse  of  indifference  which  precedes  the  death  of 
all  faith. 

I  have  already  more  than  once  referred  to  the  "  mon- 
ster of  absurdity," — as  Whitaker  justly  describes  it, — of 
an  avowed  Arian,  on  the  bench  of  Bishops,  in  the  person 
of  Dr.  Clayton,  and  might  here  still  farther,  did  my  limits 
permit,  increase  my  list  of  Socinian  Divines  of  the  Church 
of  England  by  such  names  as  Watson,*  Warburton,f  Jor- 
tin,;!; the  late  Dr.  Parr,§  and  others, — showing  how  irre- 

*  In  a  charge  to  his  clergy,  in  the  year  1795,  this  latitudinarian  di- 
vine, speaking  of  the  Christian  doctrines,  thus  speaks: — "  I  think  it 
safer  to  tell  you  where  they  are  contained  than  what  they  are.  They  are 
contained  in  the  Bible,  and  if,  in  reading  that  book,  your  sentiments 
concerning  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  should  be  different  from  those 
of  your  neighbour,  or  from  thoscofthe  Church,  be  persuaded,  on  your  part, 
that  infallibility  appertains  as  little  to  you  as  it  does  to  the  Church." 

The  same  Bishop,  in  the  Catalogue  of  books  affixed  to  his  Theologi- 
cal Tracts,  says,  "We  ought  to  entertain  no  other  wish  than  that 
every  man  may  be  allowed,  without  loss  of  fame  or  fortune,  to  think 
what  he  pleases,  and  say  what  he  thinks — (et  sentire  quae  velit  et  quse 
sentiat  dicere.")  In  adverting  to  this  free  and  easy  principle,  a  cor- 
respondent of  the  reverend  author  of  the  Parriana  very  justly  says, 
"This  extraordinary  passage  means  what  is  nothing  to  the  purpose, 
or  what  is  very  disgraceful  to  the  Church  of  England.  Certainly,  un- 
til a  man  avows  himself  her  member  or  teacher,  she  claims  no  autho- 
thority,  leaving  conscience  and  disquisition  free;  but  when  men  have 
in  almost  a  score  of  instances  solemnly  declared  their  assent  and  con- 
sent to  certain  Articles,  does  the  Church  then  permit  any  such  indivi- 
dual '  et  sentire  qum  velit  et  quce  sentiat  dicere?'  " 

t  In  reference  to  some  very  coarse  ridicule  cast  by  Warburton,  in 
one  of  his  letters  to  Hurd,  on  the  Biblical  account  of  Noah's  Ark,  Mr. 
Barker,  in  his  amusing  work,  Parriana,  says,  "  Should  William  Hone, 
the  bookseller,  have  been  tried  for  political  parodies,  when  Bishop  War- 
burton  could  write  in  this  manner  about  Biblical  history?" 

%  The  writer  of  a  letter  addressed  to  Gilbert  Wakefield,  and  pub- 
lished in  his  Memoirs,  tells  us  that  "  Jortin  professed  himself  a  doubter 
about  the  Trinity;"  and  adds,  "he  had  a  mind  far  above  worldly 
views  ;  yet,  whether  from  a  desire  to  be  useful  in  his  profession,  or 
any  other  good  motive,  (it  certainly  was  some  good  motive,)  he  sub- 
scribed repeatedly  both  before  and  after  this  profession." 

In  confirmation  of  this  account  of  his  opinions,  we  find  Jortin,  in 
his  Miscellanies,  accusing  those  who  adopt  the  high  Trinitarian  doc- 
trine, of  "  making  Jesus  Christ  his  own  Father  and  his  own  Son." 
What  this  ingenious  divine  thought,  in  general,  of  the  Church  to  which 
he  so  repeatedly  subscribed,  may  be  collected  from  the  following  pas- 
sage : — "Bacon  says,  'if  St.  John  were  to  write  an  Epistle  to  the 
Church  of  England,  as  he  did  to  that  of  Asia,  it  would  surely  contain 
this  clause,  I  have  a  few  things  against  thee.''  I  am  afraid  the  clause 
would  be,  I  have  not  a  few  things  against  thee.'''' — Jortin. 

§"  Doctor  Parr's  avowal  (says  Mr.  Barker)  of  the  coincidence  of  his 


(      286      ) 

sistibly,  in  the  face  of  all  pledgee  and  bribes,  of  all  re- 
straints on  conscience  and  baits  to  cupidity,  the  sceptical 
spirit  of  Protestantism*  continues  to  hurry  on  in  its 
downward  career  to  that  dark  plunge  into  infidelity 
which  full  as  surely  awaits  it  as  doth  the  rush  down  the 
steep  await  the  Niagara  in  its  course. 

Having  already,  however,  out-gone  the  limits  which  I 
had  allowed  myself  for  this  sketch,  I  shall  here  only  add 
that  the  remarkable  parallel  which  I  have  proved  so 
clearly  to  have  existed,  throughout  every  stage  of  their 
respective  careers,  between  the  Protestantism  of  Ger- 
many and  that  of  England,  has  received,  even  while  I 
write,  an  additional,  and,  I  might  say,  crowning  step  in 
the  proposal  recently  made  for  a  coalition  between  the 
Church  of  England  and  the  Dissenters.  This  companion 
picture,  as  it  may  be  called,  to  the  memorable  compro- 
mise between  the  Lutherans  and  Calvinists  of  Germany, 
owes  its  first  outline  to  a  Church  of  England  divine,  of 

own  opinion  with  those  of  Bishop  Hoadley,  Dr.  Bell,  and  Dr.  Taylor, 
on  the  Real  Presence,  seems  to  confirm  Mr.  Gibbon's  assertion  of  the 
actual  prevalence,  among  the  Reformed  Churches,  of  the  opinion  of 
Zwinglius,  that  the  Sacrament  of  the  Altar  is  no  more  than  a  spiritual 
communion,  a  simple  memorial  of  Christ's  death  and  passion."—  Par- 
riana. 

The  following  anecdotes,  from  the  same  work,  respecting  Dr.  Parr, 
are  curious : — "At  a  friend's  house  in  Norwich,  the  conversation  turned 
upon  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation.  From  what  the  Doc- 
tor said,  I  understood  him  to  mean,  that  nothing  more  was  intended 
than  an  ordinary  birth.  I  took  a  much  higher  position,  and,  con- 
vinced of  the  strength  of  my  ground,  asked  him  whether  it  was  possi- 
ble that  the  Evangelist,  in  penning  the  sentence, '  The  Word  was  made 
flesh,'  &c.  could  mean  no  more  than  the  conception  and  birth  of  a  mere 
human  being?— Without  pursuing  the  subject,  he  merely  said,  "You 
are  rierht,  you  are  right!" 

"  I  had  once  the  pleasure  of  driving  the  Doctor  a  few  miles  into  the 
country,  to  visit  a  former  pupil.  When  we  returned  together,  it  was 
a  bright  starlight  night,  and  the  beauty  of  the  scene  over  our  heads 
led  me  to  ask  him,  with  reference  to  the  Mosaic  record,  how  long,  in 
his  opinion,  those  orbs  had  rolled  and  glittered.  He  made  some  re- 
marks on  the  term  (created)  employed  by  the  sacred  penman,  distin- 
guishing between  creation,  strictly  understood,  and  formation,  or  put- 
ting the  then  chaos  into  its  present  order.  I  did  not  then  admire  the 
distinction  which  throws  back  the  creation  to  an  indefinite  period,  and 
thrusts  the  Creator  from  what  seems  his  proper  place  ;  and  if  Moses 
should  fail  us  here,  and  the  same  mode  of  criticism  be  adopted  in  other 
parts  of  Scripture.  I  fear  we  shall  have  no  proof  of  the  creation  of  the 
material  world  at  least." 

*  Doctor  Parr  having,  as  it  appears,  intimated  that  Bishop  Porteus 
had  been  a  Socinian  before  he  came  to  the  mitre,  the  British  Critic  for 
January,  16-28,  in  taking  up  the  cause  of  the  latter,  says,  "  That  the 
calumniator  of  Porteus  should  be  the  panegyrist  of  such  prelates  as 
.Clayton  and  Hoad'y  is  a  mere  matter  of  course.    But  Doctor  Parr 


(     28?     ) 

high  character  and  attainments,*  who  grounds  I113  views 
of  the  expediency  and  even  urgency  of  such  a  step,  both 
on  the  extent  to  which  dissent  from  the  Established 
Church  prevails,  and  the  reconcileable  nature  of  the  doc- 
trines out  of  which  that  dissent  arises.  That  this  penul- 
timate scene  of  the  drama  must  before  long  arrive,  none 
who  read  the  signs  of  the  times  aright  can  harbour  a  sin- 
gle doubt ;  and  some  notion  may  be  formed  of  the  amount 
of  sacrifice  that  will,  in  such  case,  be  required  of  the 
Church,  by  her  new  allies,  from  the  following  items  of 
what  one  of  her  own  living  divines  considers  objectionable 
in  her  ritual : — 

"  What,  (asks  the  Rev.  Mr.  Riland)  do  we  gain  by  the 
party  spirit  of  the  preface  to  the  Liturgy:  the  ill  selec- 
tion of  proper  lessons,  epistles,  and  gospels ;  the  reten- 
tion of  legendary  names  and  allusions  in  the  calendar ; 
the  lection  of  the  Apocrypha  and  the  omission  of  the 
Apocalypse ;  the  mention  of  feasts  and  fasts  never  ob- 
served ;  the  repetition  of  the  Paternoster,  Kyrie  Eleison, 
and  Gloria  Patri ;  the  wearisome  length  of  the  services ; 
the  redundance  and  assumptions  in  the  state  prayers ;  the 
unsatisfactoriness  of  the  three  creeds;  the  disputable  cha- 
racter of  the  baptismal  and  the  burial  offices;  the  incom- 
pleteness and  dubious  construction  of  the  catechism,  and 
of  the  order  of  confirmation ;  the  inapplicable  nature  and 
absolution  of  the  visitation  of  the  sick ;  the  imperfection 
of  the  commination  service;  the  discordance  between  the 
Prayer  Book  and  Bible  translation  of  the  Psalms;  the 
contumelious  and  offensive  language  of  the  state  ser- 
vices ;  and,  added  to  all  these  sources  of  weakness,  simi- 
lar causes  of  inefficiency  in  the  Articles  and  Homilies  ?" — • 
Riland. 


could  only  admire  at  a  distance  their  good  fortune  which  threw  them 
on  those  happier  days  when  it  was  permitted  to  an  Arian  and  a  Soci- 
nian  to  avow  their  principles  and  yet  retain  their  mitres."' 

*Dr.  Arnold. — The  following  is  an  extract  from  the  itev.  Doctor's 
pamphlet: — "We  are  by  no  means  bound  to  inquire,  whether  all  who 
pray  to  Christ  entertain  exactly  the  same  ideas  of  his  nature.  I  be- 
lieve that  Arianism  involves  in  it  some  very  erroneous  notions  as  to 
the  object  of  religious  worship;  but  if  an  Arian  will  join  in  our  wor- 
ship of  Christ,  and  will  call  him  Lord  and  God,  there  is  neither  wisdom 
nor  charity  in  insisting  th.it  he  shall  explain  what  he  means  by  these 
terms;  nor  in  questioning  the  strength  and  sincerity  of  his  faith  in 
his  Saviour,  because  he  makes  too  great  a  distinction  between  the  di- 
vinity of  the  Father,  and  that  which  he  allows  to  be  the  attribute  of 
the  Son. 


(     288     ) 

\  V  hile  such  are  the  symptoms,  so  formidably  similar  to 
all  that  occurred  in  Germany,  of  the  advance  of  indiffe- 
rentism  and  scepticism  among  the  Clergy  of  this  country, 
we  have  the  authority  of  the  Clergy  themselves  for  the 
progress  of  the  same  demoralizing  principles  among  the 
Laity.  "  Infidelity,"  says  Bishop  Watson,  in  his  Apology 
for  the  Bible,  u  is  a  rank  weed ;  it  threatens  to  overspread 
the  land ;  its  root  is  principally  found  among  the  great 
and  opulent."  In  the  same  manner  Bishop  Prettyman 
complains,  in  one  of  his  Charges,  M  that  the  characteris- 
tics of  the  present  times  are  confessedly  incredulity,  and 
an  unprecedented  indifference  to  the  religion  of  Christ." 
— And  Bishop  Barrington  said,  in  1797,  "  Even  in  this 
country  there  is  an  almost  universal  lukewarmness,  re- 
specting the  essentials  of  religion." 

At  the  same  time,  too,  that  these  and  other  eminent 
Church  of  England  authorities*  bear  such  testimony  to 
the  irreligion  of  the  higher  classes  of  the  country,  we 
find  in  the  Reports  of  Home  Missionaries  and  other  such 
sources  an  equally  lamentable  picture  of  the  demoraliza- 
tion of  the  lower. 

.  At  the  first  annual  meeting  of  the  Parent  Home  Mis- 
sionary Society,  1820,  it  is  stated,  in  reference  to  North- 
umberland, Cumberland,  Durham,  and  part  of  Lancashire^ 
that  M  darkness  covers  this  part  of  England,  and  gross 
darkness  the  people :" — while  the  County  of  Worcester, 
it  is  said,  may,  "  in  a  moral  light,  be  regarded  as  a  waste,. 
howling  wilderness."  In  the  same  Report,  Staffordshire 
is  stated  to  contain  three  hundred  thousand  inhabitants, 
"  the  greater  part  of  whom  sit  in  darkness  and  the  gloomy 
shades  of  overspreading  death."  Again,  Oxfordshire,  we 
are  told,  presents  a  "  moral  wilderness  of  awful  dimen- 
sions," and,  in  a  part  of  Berkshire,  M  the  villages  are  in  a 
state  of  complete  mental  darkness." 

In  a  second  Report  of  the  same  Society,  it  is  stated 

•% 

*  The  writers  of  the  British  Critic,  who,  to  do  them  but  justice,  de- 
fend the  interests  of  their  religion  with  a  degree  of  zeal  and  ability 
which  is  rare  among  the  theologians  of  this  age,  thus  acknowledge 
and  deplore  the  state  of  Protestant  England,  as  hastening  fast  to  a 
similar  doom  with  that  of  Protestant  Germany  :—"  There  is  quite 
enough  of  infidelity  amongst  us  already.  Liberal  principles,  that  is, 
no  fixed  principles  whatever,  are  professed  in  every  quarter;  and,  in 
spite  of  the  apparent  tranquillity  which  reigns  around,  the  day  may  not 
be  distant,  in  which  there  will  be  as  little  belief  amongst  the  gentlemen  of 
England  as  there  w  now  amongst  the  philosophers  of  Germany— that  it. 
none  at  all.'' 


(     289     ) 

that  Mr.  Sparkes  preached  in  four  places  which  were 
"  moral  wildernesses,  and  knew  nothing  of  evangelical 
truth ;"  and  in  the  third  Report,  one  of  the  Missionaries 
says  of  his  station,  "  I  verily  believe  that  this  is  the  worst 
place  under  the  heavens,  for  men,  women,  and  children 
seem  to  glory  in  blaspheming  the  Lord !" 


-»i»^  &  ©+<««*- 


CHAPTER  LI. 

Return  to  Ireland. — Visit  to  Tovvnsend-street  Chapel.— Uncertainty 
and  unsafety  of  the  Scriptures,  as  a  sole  Rule  of  Faith: — Proofs. — Au- 
thority of  the  Church.— Faith  or  Reason. — Catholic  or  Deist.— Final 
Resolution. 

On  the  23d  of  April,  1830, — completing  just  a  year 
and  a  week  from  the  date  of  that  memorable  evening, 
when,  in  my  chambers,  up  two  pair  of  stairs,  Trinity 
College,  I  declared  so  emphatically,  "  I  will  be  a  Protes- 
tant,"— I  found  myself  once  more  safely  landed,  on  Irish 
ground,  and,  I  need  hardly  add,  a  far  better  and  honester 
Catholic  than  when  I  left  it.  That  disreputable  hanker- 
ing after  the  flesh-pots  of  Ballymudragget  which  had  so 
long  blinded  me  to  the  light  of  truth,  or  rather  tempted 
me,  with  that  light  full  before  me,  to  turn  my  back  upon 
its  beams,  was  now  cast  away  with  scorn  and  loathing 
from  my  mind ;  and  the  very  first  Sunday  after  my  arrival 
beheld  me  once  more  in  the  old  Townsend  Street  Chapel, 
with  a  conscience  lightened  of  self-reproach,  and  a  heart 
full  of  the  humblest  gratitude  to  that  Being  whose  eye 
had  watched  over  me  through  the  temptations  with  which 
I  had  had  to  struggle. 

On  looking  back  to  the  wide  field  over  which  my  in- 
quiries had  led  me,  I  could  not  but  see  that  the  main 
source  of  all  the  heresies  and  blasphemies  which  have 
arisen,  like  phantoms,  along  the  pathway  of  Christianity, 
from  the  first  moment  of  its  appearance  in  this  world,  lay 
in  that  free  access  to  the  perusal  of  the  Scriptures  and 
that  free  exercise  of  private  judgment  in  interpreting 
them,  which  heretics  have,  in  all  ages,  contended  for,  and 
the  Catholic  Church  has,  in  all  ages,  as  invariably  con- 

25 


(     290     ) 

demned.  It  was,  therefore,  with  a  sigh  to  think  how  long- 
lived  and  unconquerable  is  error,  that  I  found,  on  landing 
in  Ireland,  the  very  same  cry  of  "  the  Bible,  the  whole 
Bible,  and  nothing  but  the  Bible,'1  which  the  Gnostics  of 
the  second  century  first  turned  to  the  detriment  of  Chris- 
tianity, employed  by  those  far  from  Gnostic  persons,  the 
Lortons  and  Rodens  of  the  nineteenth, — however  uncon- 
sciously and  ignorantly,  on  their  parts,  to  the  same  bale- 
ful purpose. 

The  mischievous  consequences  of  leaving  the  Scrip- 
tures to  be  interpreted  according  to  individual  fancy  and 
caprice  have  been  pointed  out,  in  opposition  to  the  Dis- 
senters* and  the  advocates  of  Bible  Societies,  by  Dr.  Bal- 
guy,  Bishop  Marsh,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Callaghan,  and  other 
Protestant  divines;  and  the  arguments  advanced  by  them, 
in  support  of  this  truly  Catholic  view  of  the  subject,  are 
far  too  valuable  to  the  cause  of  true  morality  and  religion 
to  allow  us  to  indulge  in  any  taunts  at  the  utter  incon- 
sistency with  the  first  and  main  principles  of  Protestant- 
ism which  they  exhibit,  f  Referring  for  the  general  view 
of  the  question  to  these  writers,  I  shall  here  employ  the 
brief  space  that  remains  to  me  in  endeavouring  to  show, 
by  a  few  facts  and  authorities,  that  the  Scriptures  as  a 
rule  of  faith,  cannot  be  otherwise  than  obscure,  uncer- 
tain, and  unsafe  without  the  aid  of  that  guidance  which 
Tradition  alone  can  supply,  and  which  the  Church,  as  the 
depository  of  all  Christian  Tradition,  alone  can  furnish. 

And,  first,  to  begin  with  the  difficulties  which  uninstruct- 
ed  and  unguided  Reason  has  to  encounter  in  the  main, 
preliminary  point  of  understanding  the  meaning  of  Scrip- 
ture,— "  Open  your  Bibles,"  says  Dr.  Balguy;  "  take  the 
first  page  that  occurs  in  either  Testament,  and  tell  me, 
without  disguise,  is  there  nothing  in  it  too  hard  for  your 
understanding?  If  you  find  all  before  you  clear  and  easy, 
you  may  thank  God  for  giving  you  a  privilege  which 


*  "  We  find  as  yet  (said  Dr.  Owen,  speaking  ofliimself  and  his  bro- 
ther non-conformists)  no  arrows  shot  against  ns  but  such  as  are  ga- 
thered u  p  in  the  fields,  shot  against  them  that  use  them  out  of  the  Ro- 
man quiver." — Inquiry  into  the  Origin  and  Institution  of  Churches. 

t  A  shrewd  Catholic  clergymen,,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Gandolphy,  did  not 
fail  to  remind  Bishop  Marsh  of  this  inconsistency: — "This,'"  says  the 
Rev.  gentleman,  "  is  exactly  the  steady,  sober  language  which  the  Ca- 
tholics have  been  using  for  two  hundred  years,  whilst  the  Reformers 
have  run  mad  with  the  Bible  fever." 


(     291     ). 

he  has  denied  to  so  many  thousands  of  sincere  be- 
lievers." 

With  respect  to  the  Old  Testament,  we  have  but  too 
clear  a  proof,  in  the  utter  misconception,  on  the  part  of 
the  Jews,  of  the  true  nature  and  character  of  the  expect- 
ed Messiah,  how  far  a  whole  nation  may  be  deceived  in 
interpreting*  the  Sacred  Writings,  even  on  a  point  touch- 
ing their  own  interests,  essentially  and  vitally:*  and 
when  to  the  difficulties  and  obscurities  which  prevented 
even  the  Jews  themselves  from  understanding  their  own 
Scriptures  are  added  all  those  that,  from  the  lapse  of 
time,  from  the  corruption  of  copies,  from  our  compara- 
tive ignorance  of  the  language  and  the  incorrectness  of 
translators,!  have  since  gathered  round  the  meaning  of 
the  text,  it  is  surely  little  less  than  utter  madness  to  as- 
sert that  the  ordinary  race  of  mankind  should  be  left  to 
sift  and  distort  to  their  own  fancies  and  whims  a  series 
of  records  left  so  awfully  open  to  misapprehension. 

Let  us  but  hear  what  Lowth,  in  recommending  a  revi- 
sion of  the  Vulgar  translation  of  the  Old  Testament,  says 
of  the  state  of  the  Hebrew  text  on  which  that  translation 
is  founded : — "  With  regard  to  the  Old  Testament,  the 
Church  of  Christ  is  no  longer  a  slave  to  the  synagogue, 
nor  does  the  Christian  interpreter  blindly  follow  those 
blind  guides,  the  Jewish  teachers.     Their  infallible  Ma- 

*  The  Jews,  too,  after  having  thus  rejected  the  real  Messiah  suf- 
fered themselves  to  be  deceived  by  several  impostors  who  usurped  that 
title  ;  and  the  writer  of  a  Dissertation  on  the  subject  (quoted  by  Gre- 
goire)  counts  no  less  than  seventeen  different  false  Messiahs  from 
Bar  Barcochebaz  down  to  Sabbathai  Zevi,  who  made  the  eighteenth. 

t  All  the  great  German  Reformers  accused  each  other  of  misinter- 
preting and  mistranslating  the  Scriptures.  Beza  found  fault  with  the 
translation  by  CEcolampadius.  Castalio  condemned  Beza's  version, 
and  Molinseus  condemned  both  Beza's  and  Castalio's.  Zwinglius 
charged  Luther  with  corrupting  the  word  of  God,  while  Luther  ad- 
vanced the  same  charge  against  Munzer. 

In  a  petition  addressed  to  James  I.  by  some  zealous  Protestants,  it 
is  stated,  "Our  Translation  of  the  Psalms,  comprised  in  our  Book  of 
Common  Prayer,  doth  in  addition,  subtraction  and  alterations  differ 
from  the  truth  of  the  Hebrew  in  at  least  two  hundred  places."  The 
Ministers  of  the  Lincoln  Diocess.  addressing  also  the  king,  pronounced 
the  English  translation  of  the  Bible  to  be  "  a  translation  which  is  ab- 
surd and  senseless,  perverting  in  many  places  the  meaning  of  the  Holy 
Ghost;*' — and  Broughton  a  red-hot  Protestant,  in  his  Advertisements 
of  Corruptions,  t«  Us  the  Bishops,  that  "their  public  translation  of 
Scripture  into  English  is  such  as  that  it  perverts  the  texts  of  the 
Old  Testament  in  eight  hundred  and  forty  places,  and  that  it  causes 
millions  of  millions  to  reject  the  New  Testament  and  to  run  to  eter- 
nal flames." 


(     292     ) 

sora,  boasted  to  have  been  an  edifice  raised  by  wise  master- 
builders  on  the  rock  of  divine  authority,  proves  to  have 
been  framed  by  unskilful  hands,  and  built  on  the  sand;  its 
foundations  have  been  shaken,  and  it  now  totters  to  its 
fall.  The  defects  of  the  Hebrew  text  itself, — for  it  can- 
not be  denied  that  it  hath  its  defects,  nor,  as  it  has  been 
transmitted  to  us  by  human  means,  could  it  possibly  be 
without  defects, — these  have  been  pointed  out  and  re- 
medies have  in  part  been  applied  to  them,  and  may  be 
farther  applied  by  an  accurate  collation  of  ancient  versions 
and  of  various  copies." 

While  such,  as  regards  the  Old  Testament*  are  the 
vague  and  shifting  sands  on  which  the  presumption  of 
Private  Judgment  has  to  build  its  conclusions,  the  diffi- 
culties which  stand  in  the  way  of  an  inquirer  into  the 
New  Testament  are  hardly  of  a  less  perplexing  or  unsur- 
mountable  nature;  nor  did  even  the  gross  misconception 
of  the  Jews,  respecting  the  Messiah,  afford  a  much 
stronger  proof  of  the  fallibility  of  human  reason,  on  such 
subjects,  that  does  the  total  perversion  of  all  the  doctrines 
of  the  Gospel  into  which  the  Gnostics  of  the  first  ages 
were,  by  the  same  self-will ed  mode  of  interpreting,  led. 
When  we  recollect,  too,  that  the  men  who  thus  mistook 
or  perverted  the  sense  of  Scripture  were  some  of  them 
contemporaries  of  the  Apostles  themselves,  spoke  the 
language  of  the  New  Testament  and  the  Septuagint  ver- 
sion, and,  from  being  natives  of  the  countries  where  the 
Gospel  was  first  preached,  possessed  all  those  clews  to 
interpretation  which  a  knowledge  of  customs  and  man- 
ners affords, — when  we  see  that,  in  spite  of  all  such  fa- 
cilities towards  the  true  understanding  of  the  Word, 
they  yet,  from  their  rejection  of  the  lights  of  Tradition 
and  of  the  authority  of  the  Church,  fell  into  the  coarsest 
and  most  puerile  misinterpretations  of  Christian  doctrine, 
— what  other,  I  ask,  than  proportionably  ruinous  conse- 
quences are  to  be  expected  from  the  illiterate  and  pre- 
sumptuous Bible-searchers  of  the  present  day,  who  to  an 
equally  arrogant  defence  of  tradition  and  authority  add 

*  It  was  the  opinion  of  Whiston  that  tha  text  of  the  Old  Testament 
had  been  greatly  corrupted,  both  in  the  Hebrew  and  Septiia<:int,  by 
the  Jews  themselves,  for  the  purpose  of  rendering,  as  he  supposes,  the 
reasoning  of  the  Apostles  from  the  Old  Testament  inconclusive  and 
ridiculous. 


(     293     ) 

the  profound  est  ignorance  of  all  that  even  modern  scio- 
lists know  upon  the  subject] 

From  the  obscurity  thus  shown  to  exist  in  the  meaning 
of  Scripture, — an  obscurity  which  those  most  qualified  to 
see  their  way  through  it  have  been  always  the  foremost 
to  acknowledge,* — Hows  naturally  the  second  defect  of 
the  Sacred  Volume,  as  a  sole  guide  of  faith,  namely,  its 
endless  uncertainty.  Those  who  have  gone  through  the 
preceding  pages  can  sufficiently  form  to  themselves  a  no- 
tion of  the  endless  varieties  of  doctrine  to  which  this  un- 
certainty has,  among  Protestants,  given  rise.  Even 
where  the  text  itself  is  simple  and  unmistakeable,  the 
facility  of  evading  its  real  sense  in  which  Heresy  is  so  prac- 
tised, comes  ever  readily  into  play.  We  have  seen  that 
of  the  words  "  This  is  my  body,"  no  less  than  two  hun- 
dred different  interpretations  appeared  before  the  end  of 
the  sixteenth  century;  and  Osiander,  as  quoted  by  Jere- 
my Taylor,  asserts  that  there  were,  during  the  same  pe- 
riod, "  twenty  several  opinions,  concerning  Satisfaction, 
all  drawn  from  the  Scriptures  by  the  men  only  of  the 
Augustan  Confession, — sixteen  several  opinions  concern- 
ing Original  Sin,  and  as  many  distinctions  of  the  Sacra- 
ments as  there  were  sects  of  men  that  disagreed  about 
them!" 

Most  frightful,  too,  is  it — to  all  but  those  who,  relying 
on  Christ's  promises  to  his  Church,  know  that  from  her, 
at  least,  the  spirit  of  Truth  will  never  be  suffered  to  de- 
part,— to  think  on  what  trivial  points  the  great  stake  of 
salvation  is  made  to  depend  by  those  who  are  guided  in 
their  faith  by  the  text  of  Scripture  alone.   The  difference 


*  For  instance,  Locke,  in  the  Essay  prefixed  to  his  Commentary  on 
the  Epistles,  says  '•  Though  1  had  heen  conversant  in  Ihese  Epistles, 
as  well  as  in  other  parts  of  the  sacred  Scripture,  yet  I  found  that  I  un- 
derstood them  not, — I  mean  the  doctrinal  and  discursive  parts  of  them." 
After  pointing  out  what  he  conceives  to  he  the  reasons  of  this  obscu- 
rity, he  adds,  "To  these  causes  of  obscurity  common  to  St.  Paul  with 
most  of  the  other  penmen  of  the  several  books  of  the  New  Testament, 
we  may  add  those  that  are  peculiarly  owing  to  his  style  and  temper." 

Macknight,  too,  remarks  no  less  strongly,  "  the  obscure  manner 
of  writing  used  by  the  Apostle  Paul,"  and  his  "dark  forms  of  ex- 
pression." But  a  still  more  formidable  source  of  error,  in  this  Apos- 
tle's style,  has  been  glanced  at  by  the  Hon.  Mr.  Boyle  {Style  of  .Scrip.) 
who  tells  us  that  there  are,  in  St.  Paul's  writings,  many  passages  so 
penned  as  to  contain  a  tacit  kind  of  dialogue  ;  and  that  of  these,  some 
parts  have  been  taken  as  arguments,  which  St  Paul  himself  meant  evi- 
dently as  objections. 

25* 


(     294     ) 

of  a  comma,  of  a  note  of  interrogation,  arising  through 
the  carelessness  of  transcribers,  will  produce  a  change 
of  meaning  by  which  the  eternal  destiny  of  millions  may 
be  influenced.  We  are  told  by  Lowth,  in  a  passage  just 
cited,  that  the  modo  of  interpreting  the  Old  Testament 
adopted  by  the  Masorites  is  now  entirely  exploded,  as  erro- 
neous and  deceptive.  On  this  mode  of  interpretation, 
nevertheless,  the  English  translation  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  is,  for  the  greater  part,  founded;  and  how 
great  is  the  havoc  which  it  makes  with  other  parts  of  the 
sacred  text,  may  be  concluded  from  the  single  instance, 
that,  in  the  Prophecy  of  Daniel  (ix.  24,  25)  it  completely 
alters  the  nature  of  the  prediction, — insomuch  as  to 
"make  it  wholly  unserviceable  to  Christians," — by  putting 
a  semicolon  in  a  place  where  there  ought  to  have  been 
a  comma  !* 

The  very  text,  indeed,  which  the  Protestants  bring 
forward  as  their  chief  authority  for  the  unlimited  perusal 
of  the  Scriptures,  varies  essentially  in  its  meaning  and 
its  applicability  to  their  purpose,  according  as  the  verb  is 
taken  in  the  imperative  or  the  indicative  mood, — "Search 
the  Scriptures,"  or  "You  seareh  the  Scriptures," — St. 
Cyril  being  for  the  latter  acceptation  of  the  sentence,  and 
St.  Augustine,  Theophylactus,  and  other  Fathers  having 
declared  for  the  former.  If  the  indicative  mood  of  the 
verb  be  admitted,  it  then  becomes  a  question,  whether  a 
note  of  interrogation  should  not  be  added,  so  as  to  make 
it  "  Do  you  search  the  Scriptures:" 

But  it  is  on  the  great  and  vital  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
that  these  grammatical  uncertainties  must,  to  all  who 
rest  their  belief  of  that  mystery  on  the  words  of  Scripture 
alone,  be  the  most  awfully  perplexing.  One  of  the  strong- 
est authorities,  in  favour  of  the  Divinity  of  Christ,  that  of 
Rom.  ix.  5,  was  got  rid  of  by  the  Socinians  by  the  mere 


*  "  Our  English  translators  took  the  present  Hebrew  text  as  it  is 
printed  by  the  Masorites  to  be  the  only  sense  and  meaning  of  the  Old 
Testament.  In  Dan.  ix.  25,  they  put  their  '  athnach,'  or  semicolon, 
after  the  seven  weeks,  and  thus  cutting  off  the  seven  weeks  from  the 
threescore  and  two  weeks,  make  the  prophecy  wholly  unserviceable  to 
Christians;  but,  if  they  had  placed  a  comma  after  seven  weeks,  and 
their  '  athnach,'  or  semicolon,  after  threescore  and  two  weeks,  the 
number  of  years,  viz.  483  (GO  weeks)  would  exactly  point  out  the  time 
when  the  Christian  Messiah  came.''—  Johnson. —See  Recs"  Cyclopedia, 
art.  Ma?  or  a. 


(     295     ) 

substitution  of  a  point  for  a  comma.*  The  text  in  1  Tim. 
iii.  16,  "  God  was  manifest  in  the  flesh,"  has  been,  in  like 
manner,  withdrawn  from  the  aid  of  the  Trinitarians,  by 
showing  that  the  true  reading  is  o;.  not  Oecc, — "  he  was 
manifest,"  not  "  God  was  manifest," — so  that  the  omission 
of  two  letters,  out  of  four,  makes  all  the  difference  here 
between  Christ's  humanity  and  his  Divinity  !f  The  read- 
ing of  xvpiou,  instead  of  ©sew,  in  Acts  xx.  28,  has  precise- 
ly the  same  humanizing  effect;  while  the  famous  verse, 
1  John  v.  7, — that  long-contested  scriptural  basis  of  the 
doctrine  of  a  Tri-une  God, — is  now,  on  all  sides,  aban- 
doned, as  unquestionably  spurious. 

What  then,  let  me  ask,  remains  to  the  Protestant  who 
has  been  taught  to  acknowledge  no  other  rule  of  faith 
than  the  Written  Word,  but  to  surrender  at  once  all  be- 
lief in  a  dogma  of  which  the  sole  props  are  thus,  one  by 
one,  taken  away?  And  such  unhappily  has  been  the  re- 
sult necessarily  attendant  on  that  fatal  rejection  of  the 
ancient  authority  of  Tradition  into  which  so  large  a  por- 
tion of  the  Christian  world  was  hurried  rashly  by  the  Re- 

*  Thus  printed  in  the  Vulgate : — M  Ex  quibus  est  Christus,  secundum 
carnem  qui  est  super  omnia  Deus  benedictus  in  scecula."— Grotius  \va3 
also  for  the  Socinian  reading  of  this  passage. 

fThe  introduction  of  the  word  "  God,"  in  this  verse,  is  suspected  by 
Erasmus  to  have  been  an  Athanasian  forgery, — "  Mini  subdolet,"  he 
says,  "  Deum  additum  fuisse  adversus  Kaereticos  Arianos."  Grotius 
is  of  the  same  opinion. 

The  following  curious  particulars  respecting  this  disputed  text,  will 
show  on  what  awfully  minute  props  the  Protestants'  sole  Rule  of 
Faith  may  depend.  In  the  Alexandrine  MS.,  to  which  both  parties  re- 
ferred for  the  text,  the  Unitarians  found  only  '02,  while  the  Trinita- 
rians thought  they  could  discover  a  transverse  line  in  the  first  letter, 
which  made  it  02,  i.  e.  0EO2.  In  order  to  ascertain  the  matter, 
Dr.  Berriman,  who  was  of  the  orthodox  interest,  took  with  him  two 
friends,  as  witnesses,  Messrs.  Ridley  and  Gibson,  and  examined  the 
manuscript,  in  the  sun  with  the  assistance  of  a  glass.  His  report  was 
decidedly  in  favour  of  the  Trinitarian  reading;  and  he  concluded  his 
statement  by  saying,  that  ;t  if  at  any  time  hereafter  the  old  line  should 
become  indiscernible,  there  never  will  be  just  reason  to  doubt  but  that 
the  genuine  reading  of  this  M8.  was  02."  The  most  curious  part, 
however,  of  the  whole  transaction  was  that  Dr.  Berriman  openly  ac- 
cused his  opponent,  M.  Wettestein,  with  having  admitted  to  a  com- 
mon friend  that  he  saw  the  transverse  line  of  the  ©2;  and  the  only 
explanation  M.  Wettestein  was  able  to  make  of  his  concession  on  this 
point  was  that,  in  admitting  the  fact,  he  was  deceived  by  the  trans- 
verse line  of  an  E,  on  the  opposite  page,  which  appeared  through  the 
vellum! 

After  all,  however,  the  Trinitarian  reading  is  now  universally 
abandoned.  Jortin  saw  it  to  be  untenable,  and  Bishop  Marsh  resigned 
it  without  a  struggle. 


(     296     ) 

formation.*  Not  only  at  the  mercy  of  every  wind  of 
doctrine  that  blows  from  all  the  countless  points  of  the 
compass  of  Private  Judgment,  but  depending  for  his  faith 
on  the  various  readings  of  manuscripts,  on  the  position 
even  of  semicolons  and  commas,  the  Protestant  loses,  at 
every  step,  some  hold,  some  footing  in  Christianity,  and 
sees  the  creed  of  his  fathers  vanishing,  like  fairy  money, 
out  of  his  grasp,  f 

Far  different  are  the  grounds  on  which  the  Catholic 
Church  asserts  her  claims  to  belief.  Holding  the  Scrip- 
tures in  one  hand,  she  points,  with  the  other,  to  the 
ancient  authority  of  Tradition, — that  authority  under 
whose  sanction  the  doctrine  "  delivered  by  the  Saints  " 
has  been  handed  down,  and  by  which  alone  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  Scriptures  themselves  can  be  authenticated. 
From  this  apostolical  source,  before,  a  single  word  of  the 
New  Testament  was  written,  she  received,  in  trust  for 
all  time,  the  imperishable  deposite  of  the  two  great  Chris- 
tian Mysteries,  the  Trinity!  an^  tne  ^ea^  Presence;  and 

*  Well  may  the  learned  and  able  Lingard  ask,  "  Have  not  the  Re- 
formed Churches,  by  rejecting  the  authority  of  Tradition,  destroyed 
in  effect  the  authority  of  Scripture,  taken  away  the  certainty  of  reli- 
gious belief,  and  undermined  the  very  foundations  of  Christianity?" 
— Strictures  on  Dr.JSlarslis  Comparative  View,  ^-c 

t  How  long  this  catastrophe  has  been  foreseen  the  following  extract 
from  the  French  Encyclopaedia  will  prove: — "  It  is  certain  that  the 
most  learned  and  intelligent  amongst  them  (Protestants)  have  for 
«ome  time  made  considerable  advances  towards  the  Anti-trinitarian 
dogmas.  Add  to  this,  the  spirit  of  toleration  which,  happily  for  hu- 
manity seems  to  have  gained  ground  in  all  communions,  Catholic  as 
-well  as  Protestant,  and  you  have  the  true  cause  of  the  rapid  progress 
Socinianism  has  made  in  our  days ;  of  the  deep  roots  it  hath  castinto 
most  minds,  the  branches  of  which,  continually  unfolding  and  extend- 
ing themselves,  cannot  fail  soon  to  convert  Protestantism,  in  general, 
into  perfect  Socinianism/' 

This  writer  falls  into  the  common  mistake  (as  does  my  friend,  in- 
deed, very  frequently  in  these  pages)  of  confounding  Socinianism 
with  Unitarianism, — an  error  now  become  almost  too  prevalent  to  be 
easily  got  rid  of.  "Unitarian  (says  a  very  ingenious  and  learned 
member  of  that  body)  has  a  general,  Socinian  a  specific  meaning; — 
every  Socinian  is  a  Unitarian,  but  every  Unitarian  is  not  a  Socinian, 
A  Unitarian  is  a  believer  in  the  Personal  Unity  of  God;  a  Socinian 
is  a  believer  in  the  Personal  Unity  of  God,  who  also  believes  Jesus 
Christ  to  be  both  a  man  and  an  object  of  religious  worship  n  So  far 
from  Socinianism,  according  to  its  true  sense,  gaining  ground,  it  may 
be  pronounced,  on  the  contrary,  wholly  extinct;  and  "  if  the  charge  of 
idolatry."  says  the  writer  just  quoted,  "can  be  justly  brought  against 
•any  Christians,  which  many  of  us  doubt,  it  is  against  such  as  hold  Christ 
to  be  a  man  only,  and  yet  pay  him  divine  honours;  that  is,  in  fact, 
against  Socinians.'* — Plea  for  Unitarian  Dissenters,  by  Robert  Jlspland. 

I  "  Separate  not  (says  St.  Basil)  the  Holy  Spirit  from  the  Patter  ani 


(     297     ) 

these,  through  chance  and  change,  and  among  all  the 
defections  and  heresies  that  surround  her,  she  has  main- 
tained, in  their  first  perfect  holiness,  to  the  present  hour. 
It  matters  not  to  her  safety  how  Heresy  and  Schism  may, 
from  time  to  time,  raise  their  bold  fronts  against  her 
power.  In  the  very  first  ages  of  her  existence,  this  re- 
bellion of  the  Evil  Principle  began ;  and  the  Ebionites 
denied  the  Trinity  and  the  Docetae  the  Real  Presence 
full  as  confidently  as  the  Unitarians  and  the  Zwinglians 
assail  those  bulwarks  of  her  faith  in  modern  times.  It 
matters  not  to  her  Unity  how  text-hunters  and  commen- 
tators, how  all  that  tribe  whom  St.  Paul  styles  "  the  dis- 
putersof  this  world,"  may  succeed  in  torturing  the  Word 
of  God  by  their  perverse  ingenuity.  That  unwritten  au- 
thority, upon  which  the  Scriptures  themselves  are  but  a 
Comment,  guides  her,  safe  and  triumphant,  through  a 
path  high  above  all  such  disturbing  influences. 

The  strange  and  startling  discovery,  upon  which  Criti- 
cism, in  its  prying  course,  has  lately  lighted, — that  the 
three  first  Gosples  are  but  transcriptions  from  some  older 
documents,  and  not  the  works  of  the  writers  whose  names 
they  bear, — however  calculated  it  may  be  to  strike  con- 
sternation into  Protestants,  who  find  there  sole  rule  of 
faith  thus  unsettled,  leaves  the  Church  which  Christ 
founded  and  instructed  still  secure  on  her  old  Apostolical 
grounds.  The  lamp  of  Tradition,  delivered  down  by  the 
Apostles,  at  which  the  light  of  the  Scriptures  themselves 
was  kindled,  still  burns,  with  saving  lustre,  in  her  hands ; 
and,  were  it  possible  that  every  vestige  of  the  Written 
Word  could  be  swept  away,  at  this  moment,  from  the 
earth,  the  Catholic  Church  would  but  find  herself  as  she 
was,  before  a  syllable  of  the  New  Testament  was  written, 
and  remembering  the  promise  of  Christ  to  be  "  with  her 
all  days  "  would  still  hold  on  her  course  unfaltering  and 

the  Son  :  let  Tradition  deter  you."—(Homil.  24,  adv.  Sabell.)  The  fol- 
lowing circumstance,  mentioned  by  Erasmus,  affords  a  happy  illustra 
tion  of  this  point.  Giving  an  account  of  a  slight  dispute  which  he 
had  with  Farel,  respecting  the  Invocation  of  Saints,  he  says,  "'I 
asked  him,  why  he  rejected  this  doctrine?  and  whether  it  was  not  be- 
cause the  Scriptures  were  silent  about  it.' — '  Yes,'  said  he  — '  Show  me 
then,  evidently,'  said  I,  '  from  the  Scriptures,  that  we  ought  to  invoke 
the  Holy  Ghost.'  "  Farel,  when  pressed,  produced  the  passage  in  John, 
"  These  three  are  one ;"  but  Erasmus,  who  was  one  of  the  many  that 
reject  that  te.xt,  would  not  admit  of  his  authority. 


(     398     ) 

unchanged,  the  sole  "  source  of  Truth  and  dwelling- 
place  of  Faith,"*  to  the  last. 

Here,  then,  under  the  safe  shelter  of  this  unerring  au- 
thority, do  I  finally  fix  my  resting-place, — submitting  im- 
plicitly to  the  only  guidance  which  promises  peace  to 
the  soul,  and  convinced  that  Reason  which,  even  in  this 
world's  affairs,  proves  but  a  sorry  conductress,  is,  in  all 
heavenly  things,  a  rash  and  ruinous  guide.  The  low 
value  which  it  is  plain  our  Saviour  himself  set  on  the 
inductions  of  human  reason  sufficiently  shows  how  little 
the  faith  which  he  came  to  teach  was  meant  to  be  ame- 
nable to  such  a  tribunal.!  The  Apostle  Paul  denounces 
the  ''foolishness  of  the  wisdom  of  this  world,"  with  a 
warmth  and  vehemence  which  leave  no  doubt  that  he 
foresaw  mischief  to  the  cause  of  Christianity  from  that 
source;  and  the  Holy  Fathers  of  the  first  ages,  though 
so  gifted  with  all  human  learning  themselves,  not  only 
knew  the  nothingness  of  such  ^ifts  in  the  eyes  of  a  Su- 
preme God,  but  felt  that  Faith,  paramount  Faith,  de- 
manded the  sacrifice  of  them  all,  as  well  as  of  stubborn 
Reason  itself,  at  the  foot  of  the  altar. 

"  When  faith  is  in  question,"  says  St.  Ambrose,  "  away 
with  all  arguments!" — "  Why  do  you  search  into  what 
is  inscrutable  ]"  asks  St.  Ephrem, — "  Doing  this,  you 
prove  your  curiosity,  not  your  faith."  St.  Chrysostom 
held  it  to  be  no  less  than  blasphemy  to  attempt  to  judge 
of  things  divine  by  reason, — seeing  "that  human  reason- 
ing hath  nothing  in  common  with  the  Mysteries  of  God;" 

*  Sola  Catholica  Ecclesia  est  quse  verum  cultum  retinet.  Hie  est 
fons  veritatis,  hoc  est  domicilium  fidei. — Lactant.  Inst.L.  4. 

f  M  How  did  Christ  himself  proceed  ?"— says  an  intelligent  writer — 
"  Knowing  that  that  Faith  must  be  very  wavering  which  is  built  on 
the  sandy  foundation  of  human  Reason,  he  did  not  so  much  as  once 
attempt  to  show  the  conformity  of  his  Gospel  to  it ;  but  whpn  Nico- 
demus,  amazed  at  the  strange  doctrine  of  '  being  born  again,'  de- 
manded 'how  can  these  thines  be?'  he  only  tells  him  that  '  he  spake 
of  heavenly  things'  and  '  wh;it  he  knew,' — urging  that  as  a  reason 
for  him  '  not  to  wonder  '  at  it He  desired  them  not  to  be- 
lieve if  they  were  not  satisfied  he  came  from  God  ;  but,  after  being 
once  convinced  of  that,  he  exacts  an  absolute  submission  ;  insomuch 
that  when  the  '  eating  his  flesh  and  drinking  his  blood  '  was  as  great 
'  a  scandal '  to  some  of  his  own  disciples  as  it  can  be  to  modern  Pro- 
testants; and  when  they  began  to  ask  '  How  c.n  this  man  give  us  his 
flesh  to  eat  ?'  he  merely  reiterates  his  assertion  of  the  same  thing,  and 
seems  to  have  taught  this  •  hard  doctrine  '  then,  on  purpose  to  distin- 
guish who  they  were  that  believed  his  authority," 


(     299     ) 

and  St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria  declares  that  "  in  matters  of 
faith,  all  curiosity  must  cease."* 

Nor  is  it  only  hy  these  great  Church  authorities  that 
such  limits  have  heen  set  to  the  exercise  of  human  judg- 
ment. Two  of  the  greatest  masters  of  the  faculty  of 
reasoning  that  ever  existed, — the  one  commanding  its 
most  comprehensive  range,  the  other  wielding  its  acutest 
subtleties, — have  alike  advanced  the  same  Catholic  and, 
I  may  add,  philosophic  opinion.  "  We  must  not,"  says  the 
wise  Lord  Bacon,  "  submit  the  mysteries  of  Faith  to  our 
Reason ;"  and  the  acute  Bayle  agrees  with  him: — "  Si  la 
Raison  etoit  d'accord  avec  elle-meme,  on  devriot  etre 
plus  fache  qu'elle  s'accordat  mal  aisement  avec  quelques- 
uns  de  nos  articles  de  Religion ;  mais  c'est  une  coureuse 
qui  ne  sait  ou  s'arreter,  et  qui  comme  une  autre  Penelope 
detruit  ellememe  son  propre  ouvrage — '  diruit,  aedificat, 
mutat  quadrata  rotundis.'  Elle  est  plus  propre  a  demo- 
lir  qu'a  batir ;  elle  connoit  mieux  ce  que  les  choses  ne 
sont  pas  que  ce  qxCelles  so?it."f 

Seeing  thus  the  judgment  pronounced  in  Scripture, 
and  in  the  writings  of  the  Fathers,  respecting  the  utter 
unfitness  of  Reason  to  be  the  judge  of  Faith,  confirmed 
by  the  opinions  of  men  so  accomplished  in  all  the  wis- 
dom of  this  world,  and  rinding,  still  farther,  a  but  too  con- 
vincing corroboration  of  the  same  truth  in  the  ruin 
brought  upon  Christianity  wherever  Reason  has  been  al- 
lowed to  career  through  its  mysteries,  I  could  not  hesi- 
tate as  to  the  conclusion  to  which  my  mind  should  come. 
"  Either  Catholic  or  Deist,"  said  Fenelon,  "  there  is  no 
other  alternative ;" — and  the  appearance  which  the  Chris- 
tian world  wears,  at  this  moment,  fully  justifies  his  as- 
sertion.]: 

*    To  ttittiIt  TntgstcT  ix,rcv  ct.7roKv7rQJLyiJ.owTW  zivcti  %g>u 
f  This  keen  truth  is  put  even  more  pointedly  in  the  words  of  Lac- 
tantius,    whom  he  cites: — "  Ita  philosophi  quod  summum  fuit  hu- 
man© scientiae  assecuti  sunt,  ut  intelligerent  quid  non  sit;  illud  asse- 
qui  nequiverunt,  ut  dicerent  quid  sit." 

\  Much  the  same  process,  indeed,  as  we  know  took  place  in  the 
mind  of  a  celebrated  searcher  of  the  Scriptures,  Doctor  Priestly,  must, 
sooner  or  later,  and  in  a  more  or  less  degree,  operate  throughout  a 
whole  nation  of  searchers.  Beginning,  as  he  himself  confesses,  by 
being  a  Calvinist,  and  that  of  the  strictest  sort,  he  became  afterwards 
a  high  Arian,  next  a  low  Arian,  then  a  Socinian,  and,  in  a  little  time, 
a  Socinian  of  that  lowest  scheme,  in  which  Christ  is  considered  as  a 
mere  man.  the  son  of  Joseph  and  Mary,  and  naturally  as  fallible  and 
peccable  as  Moses  or  any  other  prophet.    Even  at  this  stage,  too,  thy 


(     300     ) 

Hail,  then,  to  the,  thou  one  and  only  true  Church, 
which  art  alone  the  way  of  life,  and  in  whose  tabernacle 
alone  there  is  shelter  from  all  this  confusion  of  tongues. 
In  the  shadow  of  thy  sacred  Mysteries  let  my  soul  hence- 
forth repose,  remote  alike  from  the  infidel  who  scoffs  at 
their  darkness,  and  the  rash  believer  who  vainly  would 
pry  into  its  recesses ; — saying  to  both,  in  the  language  of 
St.  Augustine,  "  Do  you  reason,  while  I  wonder ;  do  you 
dispute,  while  I  shall  believe ;  and,  beholding  the  heights 
of  Divine  Power,  forbear  to  approach  its  depths."* 

Doctor  honestly  avowed,  that  "  he  did  not  know  when  his  creed  would 
be  fixed." 

In  like  manner,  Chillingworth,  the  great  modern  promoter  of  the 
cry  of  "  the  Bible,  the  whole  Bible,"  &c.  passed  from  Protestantism 
to  Popery,  from  Popery  back  to  Protestantism  again,  then  repented 
almost  immediately  his  reconversion,  and,  in  the  end,  died,  it  is  sup- 
posed, a  Socinian.  How  far  gone  he  was  in  this  latter  direction  even 
at  the  time  when  he  wrote  his  famous  Protestant  work,  appears  from 
a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  a  friend,  while  employed  on  that  task,  and 
in  which,  after  referring  to  some  ancient  authorities,  on  the  subject 
of  the  Trinity,  he  says  that  whosoever  shall  freely  and  impartially 
consider  the  matter1,  shall  not  choose  but  confess,  or  at  least  be  very 
inclinable  to  believe,  that  the  doctrine  of  Arius  is  either  a  truth  or  at  least 
no  damnable  heresy."— S;e  Life  prefixed  to  his  Works. 

*  Tu  ratiocinare,  ego  miror.  Tu  disputa,  ego  credam:  altitudinem 
video,  ad  profundum  non  pervenio.— He  adds,  4i  To  you  who  come  to 
scrutinize  what  is  inscrutable,  and  to  investigate  what  cannot  be  in- 
vestigated, I  say,  Stop,  and  Believe,— or  you  perish!" 


;$i©ar2£S< 


Page  23. 

Irenacus,  in  citing  the  Shepherd,  calls  it  "  Scripture, "  from 
which  some  have  concluded  that  he  really  held  it  to  be  Ca- 
nonical : — "illud  etiam  non  omittendum  quod  Herme  Pas- 
torem  velut  canonicam  Scripturam  laudet  Irenaeus."  (~ Ma- 
suet  Dissert.  Prsev.  in  Iren.J  Lardner,  however,  has  shown 
that  Irenaeus  uses  the  word,  here,  merely  as  a  "  writing*,"  or 
"book." 

St.  Clement  of  Alexandria,  no  less  than  Origen,  seems  to 
have  considered  the  Shepherd  as  a  divinely  inspired  work. — 
Buceg  toivw  m  fovct/mtg  n  vot  Eg^ua  kxtsl  ct,7rox.xXu^iv  KUkovrsL. — 
Strom.  Lib  *  1. 

Page  24. 

So  strict  a  faster  was  St.  Ambrose,  that  he  never  dined, 
we  are  told,  but  on  Saturdays,  on  Lord's  Days,  and  the  Fes- 
tivals of  Martyrs.  It  is  said  that  Monica,  St.  Augustine's  mo- 
ther, was  greatly  offended,  on  her  coming  to  Milan,  to  find 
Ambrose  dining  on  the  Saturday;  having  observed  that  day 
to  be  kept  as  a  solemn  fast  of  Rome,  and  in  other  places, 
and  therefore  wondering  that  it  should  be  held  as  a  festival 
at  Milan. 

Page  27. 
"  The  Heal  Presence,"  &c. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  whenever  in  these  pages, 
I  make  use  of  the  phrase  Real  Presence,  I  mean  to  include 
also  the  necessary  consequence  of  that  miracle,  Transubstan- 
tiation.  Once  the  corporal  Presence  is  admitted,  the  change 
of  the  substance  of  the  sacramental  elements  follows  as  a 
matter  of  course.  It  has  been  always  the  policy,  however, 
of  Protestants,  and  for  very  evident  reasons,  to  direct  their 
attacks  solely  against  the  absurd  process,  as  they  choose  to 
term  it,  of  Transubstantiation;  which  is  about  as  shallow  and 
unfair  a  way  of  arguing  as  it  would  be  to  assume  the  mere 
numerical  difficulty  attendant  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
as  the  sole  grounds  for  objecting  to  it. 

In  the  disputations  between  Catholics  and  Protestants  in 
the  reign  of  Edward  VI.,  the  latter  invariably  took  this  un- 
fair vantage  ground;  the  Catholics  anxiously,  but  vainly  en- 

26 


(     302     ) 

deavouring  to  have  the  question  of  the  Real  Presence  settled, 
in  its  natural  order,  previously  to  the  discussion  of  the  ques- 
tion of  Transubstantiation.  Both  the  motives  and  the  futility 
of  this  subterfuge  have  been  thus  well  exposed  by  Bossuet  : 
— "Pour  conserver  dans  les  coeurs  des  peuples  la  haine  du 
dogme  Catholique  il  a  faller  la  toumer  contre  un  autre  objet 
que  la  Presence  Reelle.  La  Transubstantiation  est  main- 
tenant  le  grand  crime :  ce  n9 est  plus  rien  de  mettre  Jesus  Christ 
present;  de  mettre  tout  un  corps  dans  chaque  pareilk;  le  grand 
crime  est  d' avoir  ote  le  pain:  ce  qui  regarde  Jesus  Christ  est 
pen  de  chose,-  ce  qui  regarde  le  pain  est  essentielle" 

Page  30. 

"I  am  so  far  from  being  ashamed,"  says  St.  Augustine, 
"  of  the  Cross,  that  I  do  not  put  the  Cross  of  Christ  in  some 
hidden  place,  but  cany  it  on  my  forehead-" 

Page  32. 

The  employment  of  the  fish  as  a  symbol  of  the  name  of 
Christ  arose  from  the  word  r^Sus  being  composed  of  the 
initial  letters  of  the  words  ln<rov;  Xgi^rog,  ©ssy  vio;,  lum^.  In 
the  spurious  Sibylline  verses,  there  are  some  acrostics  begin- 
ning with  these  letters.  For  the  same  reason,  as  well  as  no 
doubt  from  their  vise  of  the  rite  of  Baptism,  Christians  them- 
selves were,  in  the  first  ages,  called  Fishes.  "  Sed  nos 
Pisciculi  (says  Tertullian)  secundum  /^3-t/v,  secundum  nos- 
trum Jesum  Christum  in  aqua  noscimurv" 

Page  33. 
"  On  the  subject  of  exclusive  salvation  as  Catholic  as  need  he.17 

This  is  also  the  language,  however,  of  the  Protestant 
Church.  "  The  visible  Church  consists  of  all  those  through- 
out the  world  who  profess  the  true  religion,  out  of  which 
there  is  no  ordinary  possibility  of  salvation. "  (~  Westminster 
Confession,  ratified  hy  Parliament,  A.  D.  1649.)  "Christ," 
says  Bishop  Pearson,  "never  appointed  two  roads  to  heaven, 
nor  did  he  build  a  Church  to  save  some,  and  another  for  other 
men's  salvation.  As  none,  then,  were  saved  in  the  Deluge, 
but  those  who  were  within  the  ark  of  Noah,  so  none  shall 
ever  escape  the  eternal  wrath  of  God,  who  belong  not  to  the 
Church  of  God." — Exposition  of  the  Creed. 

In  cases  of  invincible  ignorance  or  invincible  necessity,  the 
Catholic  Church  admits  of  exceptions  to  this  sweeping  sen- 
tence. Thus,  in  the  Censure  passed  by  the  Sorbonne  on 
Rousseau's  Emile,  we  find  it  laid  down; — "Tout  homme 
qui  est  dans  l'ignorance  invincible  des  rentes  de  h  Foi  ne 
sera  jamais  puni  de  Dieu  pour  n'avoir  pas  cm  ces  verites. 


(      303     ) 

Telle  est  la  doctrine  Chretienne  et  Catholique  (Art  26) — 
Quant  aux  communions  separees  de  l'Eglise,  les  enfants  et  les 
simples  qui  vivent  dans  ces  communions  ne  participent  ni  a 
la  heresie  ni  au  schisme;  ils  en  sont  excuses  par  leur  ignorance 
invincible  de  l'etat  des  choses.  II  n'est  pas  du  tout  impos- 
sible a  ceux  qui  vivent  dans  des  communions  separees  de 
l'Eglise  Catholique  de  parvenir,  autant  qu'il  est  necessaire 
pour  leur  sault  a  la  connaissance  de  la  revelation  Chretienne 
(art.  32.") 

The  eminent  Catholic  Prelate,  Frayssinous,  thus  asserts 
the  same  reasonable  and  charitable  doctrine:  "L'igno- 
rance  involontaire  de  la  revelation  n'est  pas  une  faute  pu- 

nissable La  revelation  Chretienne  est  une  loi 

positive,  et  il  est  de  la  nature  d'une  loi  de  n'etre  obligatoire 
que  lorsqu'elle  est  publiee  et  connue." — Conferences. 

Page  42. 

"  The  Injudicious  excess  of  zeal  which  led  Bonaventura,"  £Jc. 

The  Psaltery  of  Bonaventura  is  one  of  those  monuments 
of  extravagant  zeal  which,  though  constantly  condemned  by 
Catholics  themselves,  will  as  constantly  be  taken  advantage 
of  by  their  enemies,  for  the  purpose  of  casting*  imputations 
on  them.  The  late  Mr.  Charles  Butler,  in  replying*  to  the 
attacks  of  Mr.  Southey  and  Dr.  Philpotts,  as  well  on  the  sub- 
ject of  this  Psaltery,  as  of  the  Catholic  hymn,  Impera  Re- 
demptori,  does  not  seem  to  have  been  aware  that  Grotius  had 
to  perform  the  same  task  before  him.  In  reference  to  a 
work  written  by  one  James  Laurence,  this  great  man,  writing 
to  his  brother,  says,  "  In  defiance  of  all  justice,  he  charges 
the  Psaltery  of  Bonaventura  upon  the  whole  body  of  Ca- 
tholics (though  it  was  condemned  by  the  Doctors  of  the  Sor- 
bonne,)  and  those  verses  to  the  Virgin  Mary  which  com- 
mence with  Impera  JRedemptori,  as  well  as  some  others  which 
he  has  quoted  from  their  books." 

In  the  same  letter,  with  his  usual  enlightened  candour, 
Grotius  does  justice  to  the  views  of  the  Catholics,  on  other 
essential  points  of  their  faith.  ' '  It  is  also  possible,"  he  says, 
"  for  persons  in  that  Communion  to  avoid  idolatry,  by  ho- 
nouring the  Saints  only  as  the  servants  of  God,  by  using 
images  as  refreshing  excitements  to  their  memories,  and  by 
venerating  in  the  Sacrament  that  which  is  its  principal  part; 
as  the  Council  of  Trent  has  made  the  Adoration  of  the  Sacra- 
ment to  be  tantamount  to  adoring  Christ  in  the  Sacrament." 
For  an  account  of  the  efforts  made  ineffectually  by  Grotius 
to  inspire  with  a  portion  of  his  own  enlarged  and  conciliatory 


(     304     ) 

spirit  the  contending1  parties  of  his  day,  the  reader  will  do 
well  to  consult  NichoWs  Jlrminianism  and  Calvinism  com- 
pared,— a  work  full  of  interesting'  reflection  and  research. 

Page  45. 

With  a  like  view  of  the  subject,  Dr.  Johnson  says,  that 
**  the  generality  of  mankind  are  neither  so  obstinately  wicked 
as  to  deserve  everlasting  punishment,  nor  so  good  as  to  merit 
being  admitted  into  the  society  of  celestial  spirits,  and  that 
God  is  therefore  generously  pleased  to  allow  a  middle  state, 
where  they  may  be  purified  by  a  certain  degree  of  suffer- 
ing-" 

These  testimonies  of  Paley  and  Johnson  to  the  Catholic 
doctrine  of  Purg-atory  suggest  to  me  to  lay  before  the  reader 
a  few  other  such  candid  admissions,  on  the  part  of  Protestants, 
of  the  truth  of  our  Catholic  tenets,  which  I  shall  here  class  un- 
der their  respective  heads,  referring"  for  farther  examples 
to  Chapter  XXXIV.  of  this  work. 

PROTESTANT   TESTIMONIES   IN  FAVOUR   OF    CATHOLIC 
DOCTRINES. 

Primacy  of  the  Pope, 

The  canonical  grounds  of  the  Primacy,  as  well  as  the  ne- 
cessity of  such  a  jurisdiction  for  the  preservation  of  unity, 
are  thus  strongly  asserted  by  Grotius: — 

"  Restitutionem  Christianorum  in  unum  idemque  corpus 
semper  optatum  a  Grotio  sciunt  qui  eum  norunt,  Existi- 
mavit  autem  aliquando  incipi  a  Protestantium  inter  se  con- 
junctione.  Posteavidit  id  plane  fieri  nequire;  quia  praeter- 
quam  quod  Calvinistomm  ingenia  ferme  omnium  ab  omni 
pace  sunt  alienissima,  Protestantes  nullo  inter  se  Communi 
Ecclesiastico  regimine  sociantur.  Quae  causae  sunt  cur  facile 
partes  in  unum  Protestantium  Corpsu  colliginequent;  immo 
et  cur  partes  ali?e  atque  aliae  sunt  exsurrecturae.  Quare  nunc 
plane  sentit  Grotius,  et  multi  cum  ipso,  non  posse  Protestantes 
inter  sejungi  nisi  simul  jung-antur  cum  iis  qui  Sedi  Romanae 
cohaerent,  sine  qua  nullum  sperari  potest  in  Ecclesia  Com- 
mune Regimen,  Ideo  optat  ut  ea  divulsio  quae  evenit  et 
causae  divulsionis  tollantur.  Liter  est  causat  non  est  Primatus 
Episcopi  Romani,  secundum  Ca?iones>  fatente  Melancthone, 
qui  eum  Primatum  etiam  necessarium  putat  ad  retinendam 
Unitatem." — Last  Reply  to  Rivetus,  Apol.  Discuss. 

Grotius  had  held  nearly  the  same  language,  with  respect  to 
what  he  calls  ' ( the  force  of  the  Primacy,"  in  his  first  Reply 
vo  Rivetus; — Quae  vero  est  causa  eur  qui  opinionibus  dissi- 
dent inter  Catholicos.  maneant  eodem  corpore  non  rupt$ 


(     305     ) 

communione :  contra,  qui  inter  Protestantcs  dissident  idem 
facere  nequeant,  utcumque  multa  de  dilectione  Fraterna 
loquantur?  Hoc  qui  recte  expendent  invenient  quanta  sit 
vis  Primatus" — Ad  Art.  7. 

"Whosoever  reads  their  writings  will  find  those  of  the 
fourth  and  fifth  ages  giving  the  supremacy  to  the  Bishop  of 
Rome,  and  asserting,  that  to  him  belongs  the  care  of  all 
Churches. " — Dumoulin,  Vocation  of  Pastors. 

"Rome  being  a  Church  consecrated  by  the  residence  of 
St.  Peter,  whom  antiquity  acknowledged  as  the  Head  of  the 
Apostolic  Church,  might  easily  have  been  considered,  by 
the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  as  the  Head  of  the  Church." — 
Blondel  on  the  Supremacy. 

In  the  course  of  some  observations  on  the  subject  of  the 
Papal  Power  and  its  advantages  during  the  middle  ages, 
Daines  Barrington  says,  "  There  was  a  great  use  to  Europe 
in  general  from  their  being  a  common  referee  in  all  national 
controversies,  who  could  not  himself  ever  think  of  extend- 
ing his  dominions,  though  he  might  often  make  a  most  im- 
proper use  of  his  power  as  a  meditator. "  He  adds,  "The 
ancients  seem  to  have  found  the  same  convenience,  in  re- 
ferring their  disputes  to  the  Oracle  at  Delphi." — Observations 
on  the  ancient  Statutes. 

After  acknowledging  the  uncertainty  of  the  Scriptures  as 
a  rule  of  faith,  a  living  writer,  Dr.  Arnold,  continues  thus : — 
"Aware  of  this  state  of  things,  and  aware  also,  with  charac- 
teristic wisdom,  of  the  deadly  evil  of  religious  divisions,  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  ascribed  to  the  sovereign  power  in 
the  Christian  society,  in  eveiy  successive  age,  an  infallible 
spirit  of  truth,  wThereby  the  real  meaning  of  any  disputed 
passage  of  Scripture  might  be  certainly  and  authoritatively 
declared;  and  if  the  Scripture  were  silent,  then  the  living 
voice  of  the  Church  might  supply  its  place;  and  being 
guided  by  the  same  Spirit  which  had  inspired  the  Written 
Word,  might  pronounce  upon  any  new  point  of  controversy 
with  a  decision  of  no  less  authority." — Principles  of  Church 
Reform, 

Penance,  Confession,  &c. 

"  Even  the  long  and  tedious  penances,  which  were  of  old 
enjoined  to  excommunicated  persons,  were  only  proofs  of 
the  faithful  tenderness  of  the  primitive  pastors  towards  the 
souls  of  their  people.  Divines  of  late  years,  have  laboured 
to  prove  that  Repentance  imports  nothing  but  an  act  of  the 
mind;  and  'tis  true,  that  the  repentance  which  fits  grown 

26* 


(     300     ) 

men  for  baptism,  does  imply  no  more  than  a  mere  change 
of  our  resolution  ....  but  that  repentance  which  is  required 
of  Christians,  who,  fallen  from  grace,  and  run  into  habits  of 
vice  or  acts  of  very  grievous  sin,  is  of  another  sort,  and  was 
believed  by  the  Guides  and  Fathers  of  the  Apostolic  age  to 
import  outward  austerities,  frequent  fastings,  and  a  long 
course  of  humiliation,  in  public  as  well  as  in  private,  as  they 

sufficiently  showed  by  their  constant  practice "We 

have  reason  to  believe,  that  when  St.  Paul  speaks  of  some 
at  Corinth,  that  *  they  had  not  repented  of  the  uncleanness 
which  they  had  committed,'  his  meaning  was,  that  they  had 
not  openly  and  solemnly  humbled  themselves  in  the  face  of 
the  congregation  for  their  crimes,'' — Johnson's  Unbloody 
Sacrifice. 

The  same  writer  continues,  "Christians  have  lost  the  true 
notion  of  perfect  repentance  for  sins  after  baptism,  which 
the  Primitive  Church  did  justly  believe  to  consist  in  a  long 
course  of  fasting,  praying,  confessing  openly  in  the  Church, 
deploring  and  bewailing  former  sins. . . .  This  was  the  'Re- 
pentance to  salvation  never  to  be  repented  of  which  the 
Apostles  and  Primitive  fathers  required  of  those  Christians 
who  had  sinned  with  a  high  hand. 

"It  is  confessed,  that  all  priests,  and  none  but  priests, 
have  power  to  forgive  sins;  that  private  confession  to  a  priest 
is  a  very  ancient  practice  in  the  Church," — Bishop  Mon- 
tague's Gagger  Gagged, 

"  Our  confession  must  be  Integra  etperfecta,  not  by  halves. 
All  our  sins  must  be  confessed, — omnia  venialia  et  omnia 
mortalia.  God  alone  blots  jout  sin: — true.  But  there  is 
another  confessor  that  would  not  be  neglected-  He  who 
would  be  sure  of  pardon,  let  him  find  a  priest,  and  make  his 
humble  confession  to  him.  Heaven  waits  and  expects  the 
priest's  sentence  here,  and  what  he  binds  or  looses,  the 
Lord  confirms  in  Heaven/' — Bishop  Sparrow's  Sermon  on 
Confession.. 

"  When  you  find  yourselves  charged  and  oppressed., 
have  recourse  to  your  spiritual  physician,  and  freely  disclose 
the  nature  and  malignancy  of  your  disease.  Nor  come  to  him 
only  with  such  mind  as  you  would  go  to  a  learned  man,  as 
one  that  can  speak  comfortable  things  to  you,  but  as  to  one 
that  hath  authority  delegated  to  him  from  God  himself,  to 
Absolve  you  from  your  sins .."-—Ckillinguxorth. 

"Confession  is  an  excellent  institution — a  check  to  vice. 
Jt  is  admirably  calculated  to  win  over  hearts,  which  have 
been  ulcerated  by  hatred,  to  forgiveness;  and  to  induce  those 


(     307     ) 

who  have  been  guilty  of  injustice,  to  make  restitution." 
Voltaire. 

"What  restitutions  and  reparations  does  not  confession 
produce  among"  the  Catholics!" — Rousseau. 

Tradition.  * 

"  It  is  evident,  from  the  Scriptures  themselves,  that  the 
whole  of  Christianity  was  at  first  delivered  to  the  Bishops 
succeeding"  the  Apostles,  by  oral  tradition,  and  they  were 
also  commanded  to  keep  and  deliver  it  to  their  successors 
in  like  manner.  Nor  is  it  any  where  found  in  Scripture,  by 
St.  Paul  or  any  other  Apostle,  that  they  would  either 
jointly  or  separately,  write  down  all  they  had  taught  as  ne- 
cessary to  salvation,  or  make  such  a  complete  canon  of  them, 
that  nothing  should  be  necessary  to  salvation  but  what 
should  be  found  in  those  writings.5 ' — Br.  Brett,  Tradition 
Necessary. 

"Here  (2  Thessalon.  vi.)  we  see  plain  mention  of  St. 
Paul's  traditions,  consequently  of  Apostolic  Traditions,  de- 
livered by  word  of  mouth,  as  well  as  by  writing,  and  a  con- 
demnation of  those  who  do  not  equally  observe  both." — 
Ibid. 

"Traditions  instituted  by  Christ,  in  points  of  faith,  have 
divine  authority,  as  the  written  word  hath :  traditions  from 
the  Apostles  have  equal  authority  with  their  writings;  and 

*On  the  truth  of  the  Catholic  doctrine,  respecting  Tradition,  the 
reader  will  find  all  that  is  most  cogent  and  convincing  in  Dr.  Lingard's 
powerful  Strictures  upon  Bishop  Marsh's  Comparative  View,  fyc.  The 
arguments  by  which  this  eminent  divine  shows  that,  without  the  aid 
of  Tradition,  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  themselves  cannot  be 
proved,  are  altogether  unanswerable.  M  How  (he  asks) can  the  Scrip- 
tures prove  their  own  inspiration  ?  It  is  on  their  inspiration  that  all 
their  doctrinal  authority  depends,  You  must  show  that  they  are  in- 
spired before  you  can  deduce  a  single  point  of  doctrine  from  their  testi- 
mony. If  in  "attempting  to  demonstrate  the  inspiration  of  any  book, 
you  pre-suppose  its  inspiration,  you  fall  into  a  pctitio  principii ;  you 
take  for  granted  what  you  have  undertaken  to  prove.  If  you  do  not 
pre-suppose  its  inspiration,  then  its  testimony  on  that  point  is  of  no 
more  authority  than  the  testimony  of  any  profane  or  ecclesiastical 

writer Perhaps  it  may  be  said  that  the  writers  appear,  from 

the  tradition  of  testimony,  to  have  been  the  apostles  of  Christ ;  that 
they  were  under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  that  they  could  not 
teach  a  false  doctrine;  and  that,  of  course,  their  writings  must  be  in- 
spired. But  whence  is  all  this  information  obtai  ned?  If  from  the  tradition 
of  testimony,  it  is  then  false  that  the  inspiration  of  the  Scripture  can  be 
proved  from  Scripture  only  ;  if  from  the  Scripture,  then  you  must  prove 
its  inspiration  before  you  can  exact  the  belief  of  the  reader  to  such  as- 
sertions. Hence,  I  conclude,  that  to  determine  the  Canon  or  the  in- 
spiration of  the  Scripture  from  the  Scripture  alone  is  impracticable: 
the  knowledge  of  both  must  be  derived  from  Tradition, 


(     308     ) 

no  Protestant  in  his  senses  will  deny  that  the  Apostles  spoke 
much  more  than  is  written." — Montague's  Gagger  Gagged. 
Dr.  Waterland,  observing",  on  the  authority  of  Irenaeus, 
that  "Polycarphad  converted  great  numbers  to  the  Faith 
by  the  strength  of  Tradition,"  adds  that  it  "  was  a  sensible 
argument,  and  more  affecting  at  that  time  than  any  dispute 
from  the  bare  letter  of  Scripture  could  be." — Imp.  of  the 
Doct.  of  the  Trin. 

Prayers  for  the  Dead,  and  Purgatory. 

"Let  not  the  ancient  practice  of  praying1  and  making*  ob- 
lations for  the  Dead,  be  any  more  rejected  by  Protestants  as 
unlawful.  It  is  a  practice  received  throughout  the  universal 
Church  of  Christ,  which  did  ever  believe  it  both  pious  and 
charitable.  Many  of  the  Fathers  were  of  opinion  that  some 
light  sins,  not  remitted  in  this  life,  were  forgiven,  after  death, 
by  the  intercession  of  the  Church  in  her  public  prayers,  and 
especially  those  which  were  offered  up  in  the  celebration  of 
the  tremendous  mysteries;  and  it  is  no  absurdity  to  believe 
so.  The  practice  of  praying  for  the  Dead  is  derived,  as"  Chry- 
sostom  asserts,  from  the  Apostles."  Bp.  Forbes  on  Purgatory. 

"  That  Austin  concludes,  very  clearly,  that  some  souls  do 
suffer  temporal  pains  after  death  cannot  be  denied." — 
Fulke's  Confutation  of  Purgatory. 

After  mentioning  the  different  opinions  of  the  Fathers  re- 
specting the  purgatorial  process  through  which  souls  are  to 
pass,  Leibnitz  thus  beautifully,  and  in  the  true  Catholic  spi- 
rit, concludes: — "Quidquid  hujus  sit,  plerique  omnes  con- 
senserunt  in  castigationem  sive  purgationem  posthanc  vitam, 
qualiscunque  ea  esset,  quam  ipsae  animae  ab  excessu  ex  cor- 
pore,  illuminatze  et  conspecta  tunc  imprimis  praeteritae  vitae 
imperfectione,  et  peccati  faeditate  maxima  tristitia  tactae  sibi 
accersunt  lib  enter,  nollentque  aliter  ad  culmen  beatitudinis 
pervenire. " — Sy sterna  Theologicum. 

"There  is  one  proof  of  the  Propitiatory  nature  of  the  Eu- 
charist according  to  the  sentiments  of  the  ancient  Church 
which  will  be  thought  but  only  too  great;  and  that  is,  the  de- 
votions used  in  the  Liturgies  and  so  often  spoken  of  by  the 
Fathers,  in  behalf  of  deceased  souls.  There  is,  I  suppose, 
no  Liturgy  without  them,  and  the  Fathers  frequently  speak 
of  them.  St.  Chrysostom  mentions  it  as  an  institution  of  the 
Apostles.  St.  Austin  asserts  that  such  prayers  are  beneficial 
to  those  who  have  led  lives  so  moderately  good  as  to  deserve 
them.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  mentions  a  prayer  for  those  who 
are  gone  to  sleep  before  us;  and  St.  Cyprian  mentions  the 


(     309     ) 

denial  of  those  prayers,  as  a  censure  passed  upon  some  men 
by  his  predecessors.  Tertullian  spoke  of  this  practice  as 
prevailing*  in  his  time,  and  the  Constitutions  do  require  Priests 
and  people  to  use  these  sorts  of  devotion  for  the  souls  of  those 
that  die  in  the  Faith." — Johnson's  Unbloody  Sacrifice, 

"Dr.  Whitby,"  says  the  same  writer,  "  has  fully  proved, 
in  his  annotations  on  2  Tim.  iv.  4,  that  the  primitive  Fathers, 
and  even  the  Apostles,  did  not  believe  that  the  souls  of  the 
Faithful  are  admitted  into  Heaven  before  the  Day  of  Judg- 
ment. It  was,  I  suppose,  from  hence  concluded  that  they 
were,  in  the  interim,  in  a  state  of  expectance  and  were  ca- 
pable of  an  increase  of  light  and  refreshment.  Since  pray- 
ing" for  them,  while  in  this  state,  was  no  where  forbidden, 
they  judged  it,  therefore,  lawful,  and  if  it  were  lawful,  no 
more  need  be  said, — Nature  will  do  the  rest.  The  only  use 
I  make  of  it  is  to  prove  that  the  ancients  believed  the  Eu- 
charist to  be  a  Propitiatory  Sacrifice,  and  therefore  put  up 
these  prayers  for  their  deceased  friends,  in  the  most  solemn 
part  of  the  Eucharistic  Office,  after  the  symbols  had  received 
the  finishing  consecration." 

"It  must  be  admitted  that  there  are,  in  Tertullian's  wri- 
tings, passages  which  seem  to  imply  that  in  the  interval  be- 
tween death  and  the  general  resurrection,  the  souls  of  those 
who  are  destined  to  eternal  happiness  undergo  a  purification 
from  the  stains  which  even  the  best  men  contract  during 
their  lives." — Bishop  Kaye. 

Among  Protestant  testimonies  to  this  ancient  and  Chris- 
tian custom  of  praying  for  the  Dead,  we  should  not  omit 
the  two  Epitaphs  written  for  themselves  by  Bishop  Barrow, 
of  St.  Asaph,  and  Mr.  Thorndike,  Prebendary  of  Westmin- 
ster. In  the  Epitaph  of  the  Bishop  are  the  following  words; 
— "  O  vos  transeuntes  in  domum  Domini,  domum  orationis, 
orate  pro  conservo  vestro,  ut  inveniat  misericordiam  in  die 
Domini." — "  Oh  ye,  who  pass  into  the  House  of  the  Lord, 
into  the  House  of  prayer,  pray  for  your  fellow-servant,  that 
he  may  find  mercy  in  the  day  of  the  Lord."  In  like  manner 
Thorndike,  in  his  epitaph,  intreats  that  the  reader  will  pray 
for  rest  to  his  soul:  "  Tu  lector  requiem  eiet  beatam  in  Chris* 
to  resurrectionem  precare."' 

Invocation  of  Saints. 

"If  the  Roman  Church  will  declare  at  once  that  she  has 
no  other  confidence  in  the  Saints  than  in  the  living,  and  that 
in  whatsoever  terms  her  prayers  to  them  may  be  couched, 
they  are  to  be  understood  of  simple  intercession  alone,  that 


(     310     ) 

is,  c  Holy  Mar}',  pray  for  me  to  thy  divine  Son,' — if,  I  say,  the 
Catholics  will  but  declare  this,*  then  all  danger  in  such 
prayers  is  over." — Molanus's  Answer  to  Bossuet. 

"I  do  not  deny  but  the  Saints  are  mediators  of  prayer  and 
intercession  for  all  in  general.     They  interpose  with  God 

*  Such  is,  and  ever  has  been,  the  declaration  of  Catholics;  as  will 
appear  from  the  following  exposition  of  their  faith  on  this  point, 
given  in  a  tract  of  high  authority,  entitled  Roman  Catholic  Principles, 
and  quoted  in  that  standard  work,  li  The  Faith  of  Catholics." — "Ca- 
tholics are  persuaded  that  the  angels  and  the  saints  in  heaven  re- 
plenished with  charity,  pray  for  us,  the  fellow-members  of  the  latter 
here  on  earth;  that  they  rejoice  in  our  conversion:  that,  seeing  God, 
they  see  and  know  in  him  all  things  suitable  to  their  happy  state; 
and  that  God  may  be  inclined  to  hear  their  requests  made  in  our  be 
half,  and  for  their  sakes  may  grant  us  many  favours — therefore,  we 
believe  that  it  is  good  and  profitable  to  invoke  their  intercession. — 
Can  this  manner  of  invocation  be  more  injurious  to  Christ  our  media- 
tor than  it  is  for  one  Christian  to  beg  the  prayers  of  another  here  on 
earth  ?  However,  Catholics  are  not  taught  so  to  rely  on  the  prayers 
of  others  as  to  neglect  their  own  duty  to  God,  in  imploring  his  divine 
mercy  and  goodness  in  mortifying  the  deeds  of  the  flesh;  in  despising 
the  world  ;  in  loving  and  serving  God  and  their  neighbours ;  in  follow- 
ing the  footsteps  of  Christ  our  Lord,  who  is  the  way,  the  truth,  and 
the  life." 

Another  point  upon  which  Catholics  have,  as  constantly  and  as 
unavailingly,  to  disclaim  the  gross  notions  imputed  to  them,  is  their 
veneration  for  Holy  Pictures  and  Images — a  veneration  which  they 
give,  "  Not  as  believing  (says  the  Council  of  Trent)  that  there  is  in 
such  pictures  and  images  any  divinity  or  virtue  for  which  they  should 
be  honoured  ;  or  that  any  thing  is  to  be  asked  of  them,  or  any  trust 
to  be  placed  in  them,  as  the  Gentiles  once  did  on  their  idols:  but  be- 
cause the  honour  given  to  pictures  is  referred  to  the  Prototypes 
which  they  represent."  In  the  Catechism  of  the  Roman  Catholics, 
one  of  the  questions  asked  is,  "  Whether  the  Catholics  pray  to  images?" 
— The  answer  to  which  is,  "  No,  they  do  not ;"  and  this  reason  is 
added,  "  because  they  neither  can  see,  nor  hear,  nor  help  us."  So  far, 
indeed,  from  sanctioning  the  adoration  of  Images,  the  Catholics  are 
accustomed  to  repeat  every  week  the  97th  Psalm,  in  which  are  these 
emphatic  words :  "  Confounded  be  all  they  that  serve  graven  images, 
that  boast  themselves  of  idols ;"  and  every  Sunday,  at  Even  Song, 
they  repeat  Psalm  cxv.  equally  denouncing  idols,  and  containing  a 
sort  of  imprecation  on  isolators,  that  "  all  men  may  become  like 
them  (the  idols)  who  make  them  and  put  their  trust  in  them." 

The  great  Leibnitz  thus  philosophically  explains  and  defends  the 
Catholic  reverence  for  images: — "Posito  igitur  nullam  aliam  admitti 
venerationem  imaginum^  quam  quse  sit  veneratio  prototypi  coram 
imagine,  non  magis  in  ea  erit  idololatria  quam  in  veneratione  quse 
Deo  et  Christo  exhibetur,  sanctissimo  ejus  nomine  pronuntiato. — 
Nam  et  nomina  sunt  notse  et  quidem  imaginibus  longe  inferiores 
rem  enim  multo  minus  repraesentant  ...".....  coram  imagine 
externa  adorare  non  magis  reprehendendum  esse  quam  adorare  co- 
ram imagine  interna  quae  in  phantasia  nostra  depicta  est :  nullus 
enim  alius  usus  externa?  imaginis  quam  ut  interna  expressior  fiat." — 
Systema  Theologicum. 

We  lind  Archbishop  Wake,  as  quoted  by  Middleton,  saying,  "he 
did  not  scruple  to  declare  that,  as  to  the  honours  due  to  the  genuine 
relics  of  the  Martyrs  or  Apostles,  no  Protestant  would  ever  refuse 
whatever  the  Primitive  Churches  paid  to  them." 


(     311     ) 

by  their  intercessions  and  meditate  by  their  prayers." — BU 
shop  Montague*  Antidote. 

"  Indeed,  I  grant  that  Christ  is  not  wronged  in  his  media- 
tion. n — Montague  on  Invocation  of  Saints. 

"  It  is  no  impiety  to  say,  as  Papists  say,  ■  Holy  Mary,  pray 
forme!' — Nay,  could  I  come  at  the  Saints,  I  would,  without 
any  question,  willingly  say,  'Holy  Peter,  pray  for  me!'  I 
would  run  with  open  arms,  fall  upon  my  knees,  and  desire 
them  to  pray  for  me.  I  see  no  absurdity  in  nature,  no  re- 
pugnancy at  all  to  Scripture,  much  less  impiety,  for  any  man 
to  say  'Holy  Angel  Guardian,  pray  for  me!5" — lb. 

"I  confess  that  Ambrose,  Austin,  and  Jerome,  did  hold 
invocation  of  Saints  to  be  lawful." — Fulke,  Rejoinder  to 
Bristow. 

"It  is  confessed  that  all  the  Fathers  of  both  Greek  and 
Latin  Churches,  Basil,  Nazianzem,  Ambrose,  Jerome,  Austin, 
Chrysostom,  Leo,  and  all  after  their  time,  have  spoken  to 
the  Saints  and  desired  their  assistance." — Thorndyke's  Epi- 
logue. 

The  Sacrifice  in  the  Eucharist. 

"The  Sacrifice  of  the  Supper  is  not  only  propitiatory 
and  may  be  offered  up  for  the  remission  of  our  daily  sins, 
but  impetratory,  and  may  be  rightly  offered  to  obtain  all 
blessings;  and,  though  the  Scripture  does  not  teach  this  in 
express  words,  yet  the  Holy  Fathers,  with  unanimous  con- 
sent, have  thus  understood  the  Scriptures,  as  has  been  de- 
monstrated by  many  and  must  be  evident  to  all." — Bishop 
Forbes,  de  Eucharistia. 

"  It  seems  strange  to  you  'that  a  matter  of  so  great  impor- 
tance, as  I  seem  to  make  this  Sacrifice  to  be,  should  have  so 
little  evidence  in  God's  word  and  antiquity,  and  depend 
merely  upon  certain  conjectures. '  As  for  Scripture,  if  you 
mean  the  name  of  Sacrifice,  neither  is  the  name  Sacrament 
nor  Eucharist  (according  to  our  expositions)  there  to  be 
found, — no  more  than  c/uoounos, — yet  may  not  the  thing  be? 
But  when  you  speak  of  so  little  evidence  to  be  found  in  an- 
tiquity,  I  cannot  but  think  such  an  affirmation  far  more 
strange  than  you  can  possibly  think  my  opinion.  For,  what 
is  there  in  Christianity  for  which  more  antiquity  can  be 

brought  than  for  this  ? Eusebius  Altkircherus,  a 

Calvinist,  printed  at  Newstadt,  in  the  Palatinate,  in  1584  and 
1591,  De  Mystico  et  incruento  Ecclesiae  Sacrificio,  in  which 
he  says,  l  This  was  always  the  standing,  accordant,  and  una- 
nimous opinion  of  all  the  ancient  Fathers  of  the  Church,  that 
the  memorial  of  the  passion  and  death  of  Christ,  in  the  Holy 


(     812     ) 

SuppCt  instituted  by  him,  contained  also  in  itself  the  com- 
mendation of  a  Sacrifice." — Mede,  Letter  to  Twisse. 

"  I  suppose  all  Protestants  will  allow  that  Christ's  sacri- 
fice was  intended  for  the  expiation  of  sin;  and,  if  so,  they 
cannot  think  it  strange  that  it  was  offered  before  it  was  slain, 
and  that  by  the  Priest  himself — for  it  is  clear  this  was  the 
method  prescribed  by  Moses  of  old.  It  will  presently  be 
shown  that  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  were  intended  as  a 
sacrifice  of  consecration,  as  well  as  expiation,  and  that  there- 
fore the  proper  time  of  offering  them  was  before  he  was  ac- 
tually slain  as  a  sacrifice  ....  And  if  Christ  gave  or  offered 
himself  in  the  Eucharist,  I  presume  I  need  not  labour  to 
prove  that  Priests  are  to  do  what  he  then  did.  We  have  his 
express  commands  to  do  or  offer  this  in  Remembrance  of 
him,  and  I  have  abundantly  demonstrated  that  this  was  the 
constant,  unanimous  judgment  of  the  Primitive  Church  for 
the  first  400  years  after  Christ" — Johnson,  Unbloody  Sacri- 
fice. 

"  There  is  yet  a  more  evident  proof  to  be  found  in  the 
Scripture,  even  in  the  very  words  of  the  Institution,  to  prove 
that  we  are  required  to  offer  the  bread  and  wine  to  God, 
when  we  celebrate  the  Holy  Eucharist,  *  This  do  in  remem- 
brance of  me.'  Dr.  Hickes,  in  his  Christian  Priesthood,  p. 
58,  &c.  proves,  by  a  great  many  instances,  that  the  word 
Trotuv,  to  do,  also  signifies  to  offer,  and  is  very  frequently  used 
both  by  profane  authors,  and  by  the  Greek  translators  of  the 
Old  Testament  in  that  sense;  and  so  also  is  the  Latin  word 
facer e.  I  will  transcribe  a  few  of  those  instances,  and  those 
who  desire  more  may  consult  Dr.  Hickes's  book. 

"Herodotus,  lib.  1,  cap.  cxxxii.  says,  'Without  one  of 
the  Magi,  it  is  not  lawful  for  them,  noim,  to  offer  a  sacrifice. 
And  in  the  Septuagint  translation  of  the  Old  Testament, 
which  all  the  learned  know  is  followed  by  the  writers  of  the 
New  Testament,  even  where  they  cite  the  words  and 
speeches  of  our  Saviour,  it  is  so  used;  as  Exod.  xxix.  36. 
'  Thou  shalt  offer,  7rct»a-cig,  a  bullock;'  verse  38,  'This  is  that 
which,  7rGt»7&is,  thou  shalt  offer  upon  the  altar;'  verse  39, 
*  The  one  lamb,  7roino-u;,  thou  shalt  offer  in  the  morning,  and 
the  other  lamb,  7rot»o-us9  thou  shalt  offer  in  the  evening.'  So 
likewise  Exod.  x.  25.  In  all  which  places  the  word,  which 
is  translated  offer,  and  which  in  this  last  text  is  translated  sa- 
crifice, and  which  in  these  and  many  other  places  will  bear 
no  other  sense,  is  the  very  word  which  in  the  institution  of 
the  Eucharist  is  translated  Do.  And  even  our  English  trans- 
lators have  sometimes  used  the  word  Do  in  this  sacrificial 


(     313     ) 

sense;  as  particularly  Lev.  iv.  20.  Here  our  English  trans- 
lation is,  *  And  he  shall  do  with  the  bullock,  as  he  did  with  the 
bullock  for  a  sin  offering,  so  shall  he  do  with  this.  ■  Here, 
indeed,  they  have  put  in  the  word  with,  without  any  autho- 
rity. The  Greek  is,  *  he  shall  do  the  bullock,  as  he  did  the 
bullock,  so  shall  he  do  this;'  where  do  plainly  signifies  offer  < 

That  the  words  of  the  institution,  rouro  rrcmTt,  do 

this,  are  to  be  understood  in  this  sacrificial  sense,  is  manifest 
from  the  command  concerning  the  cup,  which  is,  '  This  do 
ye,  as  oft  as  you  drink  it,  in  remembrance  of  me*'  For  ex- 
cept we  understand  the  words  in  such  a  sense,  they  will  be 
a  plain  tautology.  But  translate  it,  as  I  have  showed  the 
words  wrill  very  probably  bear,  '  Offer  this:  make  an  obla- 
tion or  libation  of  this,,  as  oft  as  ye  drink  it  in  remembrance 
of  me?  and  the  sense  is  very  good.  A  Priest,  therefore,  is 
necessary  and  essential  to  the  due  administration  of  the  sa- 
crament."— Dr.  Brett,  True  Scrip.  Account  of  the  Eucharist. 
For  the  best  Catholic  arguments  on  all  the  above  points,  I 
beg  to  refer  to  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury's  comprehensive  and 
able  Reasons  for  not  taking  the  Test,  &c,  and  Dr.  Baines, 
lively  and  acute  Answers  to  Archdeacon  Daubeny,  &c* 

Page  50. 
"  The  Eucharist  prefigured  in  the  offerings  of  the  Old  Law. iT 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  among  the  rest,  expressly  says, 
that  Melchisedeck  distributed  bread  and  wine,  as  conse- 
crated food,  for  a  type  of  the  Eucharist: — mv  »ytx,7{Aivnv  tT/cTc- 
us  <T£o<pnv  u;  <rv7ror  iv%*y<rTicts. — Stromat.  Lib.  4+ 

Page  52, 
"If  it  had  so  great  power  in  the  type,  &c." 
In  the  same  sense,  Eusebius  says  "We  with  good  reason 
daily  celebrating  the  memorial  of  Christ's  body  and  blood, 
and  being  dignified  with  a  better  victim  and  Hierurgy  than 
the  old  people,  do  not  think  it  safe  to  fall  back  to  the  for- 
mer weak  elements  that  contain  symbols  and  images,  not  the 
Verity." — ovtt  tm  criov  wyov/Ai&a,  KATct7rt7r<TUv  em  <tcl  7rgoefrct  kai 

gitXovr*. — Demonstrate  Evangel. 

Page  58. 
To  Schelstrate,  who  held  that  the  Discipline  of  the  Secret 
was  in  full  force  of  operation,  during  the  second  century,  this 
instance  of  boldness,  on  the  part  of  St.  Justin,  in  promul- 
gating the  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation  to  the  Gentiles,  ap- 
pears naturally  a  disconcerting  and  puzzling  fact.     "Cum 

27 


(     314     ) 

enim  Romanum  Senatum  Gentilem  tanc  fuisse,  Antoninum 
quoqae  cum  ejus  filiis  Paganos  extitisse,  certum  sit,  ostendi 
debet  quomodo,  salva  disciplina  Arcani  tan  clare  de  Baptis- 
mi  ritibus  et  Eucharistia  Sacramentis  ti*actare  potuerit  Justi- 
nus."  His  solution  of  the  difficulty  is,  that  Justin  was  led 
to  so  daring-  a  step  by  the  necessity  of  vindicating  the  Chris- 
tians against  the  calumnies  of  which  they  were  then  the 
object. 

Page  64. 

Among  the  clearest  and  strongest  arguments  that  have 
been  advanced  as  well  for  the  application  of  John  vi.  to  the 
Eucharist  as  for  the  connexion  of  the  Eucharist  itself  with 
the  Incarnation,  may  be  accounted  those  brought  forward 
by  the  famous  Bretschneider  in  his  Treatise  on  the  Gospel 
and  Epistles  of  St.  John;  nor  is  the  opinion  of  this  writer  the 
less  worthy  of  attention  from  his  being  himself  wholly  un- 
interested in  the  decision  of  the  question,  (at  least  as  it 
stands  between  Protestants  and  Catholics,)  the  object  of  his 
book  being  no  fess  than  to  prove  that  this  Gospel  was  not 
written  by  St.  John  at  all,  but  by  some  Gnostic  imposter  of 
a  later  period. 

I  shall  here  subjoin,  for  the  learned  reader,  a  passage  from 
this  Treatise,  in  which,  comparing  the  account  given  of  the 
Docets  by  Ignatius,  and  the  repugnance  felt  by  these  here- 
tics to  the  doctrine  of  a  Real  Presence,  with  the  announce- 
ments made  by  Jesus  in  the  sixth  Chapter  of  St.  John,  Bret- 
schneider shows  that  our  Saviour's  language  was  directed 
against  their  heresy,  and  had  no  other  object  than  to  esta- 
blish, in  opposition  to  their  views,  the  reality  and  verity  of  his 
own  flesh  in  the  Sacrament: — 

"  Non  vero  omnibus  eandem  fuisse  sententiam,  et  Docetas 
nominatim  negasse  in  eucharistia  adesse  Jesu  carnem  s.  cor- 
pus, ex  Ignatii  epistolis  videmus,  quae  vel  maxime  non  sint 
genuinae,  tamen  haud  dubie  seculo  secundo  debentur.  Hie 
vero,  et  quidem  epist.  ad  Smymaeos  c  6.  p.  37,  ed.  Cleric, 
legitur  locus,  mimm  in  modum  cum  nostro  congruens.  Ig- 
natius enim  de  Docetis,  &vK*£i;ridic,  inquit,  xxi  Tr^ociu^n;  (i.  e. 
precum  in  eucharistia  faciendarum,  puto  ms  &ri)t\ho-ites  tou 

7TViUfXiL<TCg  ftyiw')   OL7ri%0VTsU   efj*  TO   (AY)  CJU0\0yitV    THV    iV%cL£l?Tl<X.V 

<r»AZK%  uvcli  toxj  coom^o;  h/uw  'Iho-gv  'Kqistou,  t»v  U7ng  'Ujuatgrtctv 
h/uav  7r*d-:inrx.vy  m  th^ivtcthti  0  7tx,t>ii>  yryetgevt-  01  ovvavti  xeyev- 
Tic  <th  cfa>g§*.  tov  &zov,  rvfyTovvTec  ct7ro^vno-Kovs-i'  o-vvtqegw  cTg  ctc- 
rag  cLyx7rxv  (i.  e.  agapen  celebrare)  iv*  kxi  clvastuxtovjiv. — 

"Vide  vero,  quam  apta  sint  ea,  quae  Jesu  in  nostro  loco 
tribuuntur,  ad  refellendos  ejusmodi  eucharistiaecontemtores! 


(     315     ) 


"  1.    Negant:  tw  ev%xyc- 
Ttctv  0-d^x.x.  mcti  tow'  Ihitou,  mv 

V7Tig  CLf/.O.g<TlG?V  H/UUV    7TCL&QV7CLV. 


"2.  Appellatur  o-agf  Chris- 
ti  Sagex,  <tgu  Sew. 

"3.  Dicuntur  adversarii 
eucharistiae  et  corporis  do- 
mini  o-vfyTovvre;  a.7rc&v)i<Tx.uvt 
sine  spe  immortalitatis  esse, 
cum  contra  si  eucharistia  ute- 
rentur  efficeretur  tvac  ttai  civet- 
crao-tv,  ut  etiam  ipsi,  ut  re- 
liqui  fideles,  resurgerent  ad 
vitam. 


"  1.  Affirmavit  Jesus  v.  51 : 

o  ctgroc  ov  zyto£too-U)  n  <rctg%  /mou- 
egriv,  hv  eyoo  Jaxra>  vtti^  thc  tcu 
Kocr/uou  £ans.  v.  55:  h  ctcl^c,  (*w 
cLXyiScvs  «?tj  finals,  xcli  to  a///* 

"  2.  Dicitur  <r*g  v.  51.  58. 

CtgTO?,  0  fa   <T0V  OUQCtVOU  K4.TCtficte% 

"3.  D ocet Jesus :majorem 
judaeorum  panem  coelestem 
Mosis  quidem  comedisse,  sed 
tamen  mortuos  esse,  v.  49, 
58. — negat,  v.  53:  s*v  /u»  <p*~ 

ytilZ  <THV  (TAgXCt  <T0V  VlOV  VGV  OLV- 
Sr^OOTTOV,  K.CLI  7rt»Ti  AVTOV  TO  CLljUCt, 

oux.  i'xyre  (^mv  tv  ezurois — affir- 
mat.  contra:  o  rgoym  tuou  <r»v 
a-a,^Kctt  adit  7riva>v  /uou  to  a.t/uctt 

STMO-G)  AVTOV    TH  i^^jLTH     tijULigdL, 

Idem  promiv.  50.  51.  57. 


Page  65. 

Remarking  on  the  lame  and  impotent  manner,  m  which 
Dr.  Whitby  endeavours  to  explain  away  the  import  of  1  Cor. 
x.  16,  17,  Johnson  says,  "  The  most  that  the  learned  Dr. 
Whitby  can  make  out  of  this  is, — '  The  Bread  broken  and 
shared  out  maybe  said  to  be  the  Communion  or  Communica- 
tion of  the  Body  of  Christ  as  being  the  communication  of 
that  Bread  which  represented  his  broken  body;  and  the  Cup 
they  severally  drink  of  may  be  styled  the  Communication  of 
the  Blood  of  Christ,  as  being  the  communication  of  that  wine 
that  represented  his  bloodshed. '  It  may  be  said,  it  may  be 
styled,  says  the  Doctor, — by  which  it  is  intimated  that,  if  it 
be  so  said  or  styled,  it  is  in  a  very  remote  and  improper  sense, 
only  so  as  to  bring  our  Saviour  and  the  Apostle  off  from  be- 
ing guilty  of  an  absurdity. 

In  reference  to  Whitby's  attempt  to  class  the  text  of 
"  This  bread  is  my  body  "with  "the  Three  Branches  are 
three  days" — "the  seven  good  kine  are  seven  years,"  (Gen. 
xli.  26,)  "  The  four  great  beasts  are  four  kings,"  (Dan.  vii. 
17,)  "Thou  art  that  head  of  gold,"  (Dan.  ii.  38,)  Johnson 
remarks,  "  So  that  it  should  seem  the  bread  of  the  Eucharist 
is,  in  the  Doctor's  judgment,  no  otherwise  the  body  of  Christ 
than  the  visionary  head  of  gold  was  Nebuchadnezzar ! "  He 
then  adds,  "Our  Saviour  having  positively  affirmed  <It  is 


(     310     ) 

my  body,4  Dr.  Whitby,  in  good  manners,  thinks  himself 
obliged  not  to  contradict  Christ  Jesus,  and,  therefore,  con- 
fesses it  may  be  so  said,  it  may  be  so  styled,  just  as  the 
Three  Branches  are  said  to  be  Three  Days.  But  Irenxus, 
Justin  Martyr,  and  Ignatius  did  not  thus  expound  away  the 
life  and  efficacy  of  the  Sacrament  into  mere  cold  and  empty 
types. 

"  The  learned  writer  just  referred  to  cites  the  following  re- 
markable passage  from  St.  Augustine,  confirmatory  alike 
of  the  two  Catholic  points  of  belief,  the  high  authority  of 
tradition,  and  the  vital  nature  of  the  Eucharist,  as  asserted 
in  John  vi. — 'The  Punick  Christians  do  rightly  call  Baptism 
nothing  but  Salvation,  and  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Body  of  Christ 
nothing  but  Life. — And  whence  have  they  this  but  from  an 
ancient  and,  I  think,  apostolical  tradition,  by  which  they 
hold  it  to  be  a  principle  innate  in  the  Church  of  Christ  that 
the  kingdom  of  Heaven  (or  Salvation)  cannot  be  had  with- 
out Baptism.  And  what  do  they  hold  who  call  the  Sacra- 
ment of  the  Lord's  Table,  Life,  but  that  which  was  said,  'I 
am  the  Bread  of  Life,  and  except  ye  eat  of  the  flesh  of  the 
Son  of  Man  and  drink  his  blood,  ye  have  no  life  in  you/  " 
"This  (remarks  Johnson)  is  a  most  ample  testimony  that 
the  African  Churches  did  believe  John  vi.  to  be  meant  of 
the  Sacrament;  and  it  seems  this  way  of  speaking  was  of  so 
long  standing  that  St  Austin  thought  it  an  Apostolic  tradi- 
tion, an  innate  principle  of  Christianity— r-«  qua  Ecclesiae 
£hristi  institutum  tenent.'  " 

Page  66. 

"In  speaking  of  those  heretics  who  abstained  from  the 
Eucharist,  Ignatius  pronounces  sentence  upon  them  in  these 
words,  'It  were  better  for  them  to  receive  it  (the  Eucharist,) 
-that,  through  it,  they  might  one  day  rise  again.'  Now,  that 
the  Eucharist  is  the  means  of  a  happy  resurrection  cannot 
be  allowed  to  be  the  doctrine  of  Scripture,  except  John  vi. 
be  meant  of  the  Eucharist,  and  therefore  this  Holy  Martyr, 
when  he  does  once  and  again  assert  that  this  is  a  privilege 
conferred  on  us  by  the  Eucharist  must,  of  consequence,  be 
of  this  sentiment  that  our  Saviour  there  spoke  of  his  sacra- 
mental body  and  blood." 

"Moreover,  I  insist  that  there  were  several  doctrines 
which  prevailed  in  the  first  ages  of  Christianity  that  CGuld 
not  be  grounded  on  any  other  authority  of  Scripture  than 
this  of  John  vi.,  as  understood  of  the  Eucharist,  viz. — that, 
by  abstaining  from  the  Holy  Eucharist  Christians  do  incur 
the  penalty  of  eternal  damnation, — that  the  Holy  Spirit  is 


{     317     ) 

particularly  present  in  the  Eucharist, — that  the  Eucharist 
conveys  to  all  worthy  receivers  a  principle  of  happy  immor- 
tality."— Johiison. 

." The  ancients  knew,"  adds  the  same  writer,  "that  our 
Saviour  there  spoke  of  the  Eucharist,  and  they  did  by  no 
means  believe  that  Christ  in  the  Holy  Sacrament  feeds  the 
souls  of  men  with  mere  diy  metaphors  or  catachreses. — 
Though  they  did  not  understand  Christ  in  a  literal  sense,  as 
the  Capernaites  did,  yet  neither,  on  the  other  hand,  did  they 
suppose  that  it  was  the  intention  of  Christ  to  puzzle  his  au- 
ditors, and  even  stagger  his  own  disciples,  with  strained 
enigmatical  sayings, — for  they  believed  he  spoke  of  a  real 
mystery;  and  that  he  was  now  opening  his  intention  of  esta- 
blishing the  most  divine  Sacrament  of  his  Flesh  and  Blood, 
and  to  raise  in  them  just  thoughts  and  apprehensions  of  that 
heavenly  Mystery,  he  speaks  of  it  in  the  most  elevated 
words. " 

•CONNEXION    BETWEEN   THE    EUCHARIST  AND    THE   MYSTERY  OF 
THE    INCARNATION. 

"The  difficulties,"  says  the  Rev.  Mr.  Rutter,  "which 
Protestants  allege  against  Transubstantiation  are  not  greater 
than  those  which  the  Socinians  may  and  do  urge  against  the 
Incarnation:  as  will  appear  from  the  following  parallel: — 

Protestants  reject    Transub-     The  Socinians  may  equally 
stantiation,  reject  the  Incarnation, 

1.  Because  the  senses  judge  1.  Because  the  senses  judge 
the  host  to  be  mere  bread.  Christ  to  be  a  mere  man. 

2.  Because  one  body  will  be  2.  Because  one  person  will 
in  two  or  more  places.  be  in  two  natures. 

3.  Because  the  same  body  3.  Because  the  same  person 
will  move  and  not  move,  will  be  both  God  and  man, 
be  visible  and  not  visible,  visible  and  not  visible, 
mortal  and  immortal,  pas-  mortal  and  immortal,  pas- 
sible and  impassible.  sible  and  impassible,  &c. 

4.  Because  Christ  would  be  4.  Because  an  immense  God 
in  the  form  of  a  wafer.  would  be  in  the  form  of  a 

simple  man. 
3.  Because     Christ's     body     5.  Because    God  would   be 
would  be  in  a  form  oppo-         in  a  form  opposite  to  the 
site  to  human  nature.  divine  nature. 

6.  Because     Christ's     body     6.  Because   God  would    be 

would  be  eaten  by  sinners.         crucified  by  sinners. 
.7.  How  can  Christ's  body  be     7.  How  can  Christ  be  con- 

27* 


(     318     ) 

Confined  in  the  tabernacle,         fined  in  the  womb  of  a  vir- 
and  be  also  in  heaven  ?  gin,  and  be  also  in  heaven  ? 

8.  Because  it  appears  absurd  8.  Because  it  appears  absurd 
to  adore  Christ  in  the  sa-  to  adore  him  who  was  bom 
crament.  of  a  woman,    and    after- 

wards crucified  by  man. 
Page  70. 
"  St.  Justin,  in  affirming  that  Christians  were,  in  his  time, 
instructed  that  the  Bread  and  Wine  were  the  Flesh  and 
Blood,  and  that  they  were  made  so  by  Prayer,  must  intend 
something  more  than  naked  types:  for  there  is  no  occasion 
for  Prayer,  or  for  the  Divine  Concurrence,  toties  quoties,  to 
render  any  thing  a  resemblance  of  another;  and  I  dare  say 
that  the  Arminians  and  Socinians  will  bear  witness  that  no- 
thing but  breaking  the  bread  and  pouring  out  the  wine  is 
necessary  to  make  the  elements  the  Body  and  Blood  in  their 
sense,  who  believe  them  to  be  nothing  more  than  mere  me- 
morandums. ' ' — Johnson. 

Page  71. 
In  his  Homily  on  the  10th  chapter  of  the  first  Epistle  to 
the  Corinthians,  v.  16,  17,  St  Chrysostom  says,  "The 
Apostle  speaks  so  as  to  make  us  believe  and  tremble,  for  he 
asserts,  that  what  is  in  the  cup  is  that  which  flowed  out  of 
Christ's  side,  and  of  this  we  partake."  In  referring  to  this 
passage,  Johnson  pertinently  asks,  "  What  is  there  in  a 
Type  to  make  a  man  tremble?" 

Page  78. 
A  curious  testimony  to  the  strictness  with  which,  on  the 
subject  of  the  Eucharist,  the  Discipline  of  the  Secret  con- 
tinued to  be  observed  even  in  the  Fourth  Century  is  to  be 
found  in  the  arguments  brought  forward  by  Deylingius 
against  Peiresc,  on  the  subject  of  a  coin  of  Constantine  the 
Great,  discovered  by  the  latter,  upon  which  he  had  per- 
suaded himself  he  could  trace  the  figure  of  an  altar,  bearing 
on  it  the  Eucharistic  wafer,  or  Host.  Deylingius,  a  fierce 
opponent  of  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  and  therefore  inte- 
rested in  getting  rid  of  all  proois  of  its  antiquity,  con- 
tended, and  I  believe  with  truth  (as  far  as  the  coin  was 
concerned)  that  the  round  figure  which  Peiresc  took  for  the 
Host  was  but  the  common  emblem  of  the  "globus  mundi," 
— that,  at  the  time  when  the  coin  was  struck,  Constantine 
had  not  yet  been  baptized,  and  could,  therefore,  know  no* 
thing  of  the  Eucharist;  and  that,  even  had  he  known  of  it, 
the  rules  of  the  Discipline  of  the  Secret  would  have  pre- 
vented his  revealing  to  the  Pagans  any  thing  connected  with 
such  a  mystery. 


(     319     ) 

Page  89. 

"Testimonies  of  the  Fathers  respecting  the  Eucharist." 

To  these  extracts,  on  the  subject  of  the  Eucharist,  I  shall 
venture  to  add  a  few  more  which  seem  to  have  escaped  the 
notice  of  my  friend,  and  for  which  I  am  indebted  to  the  in- 
valuable work  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Berington,  "The  Faith  of 
Catholics." 

Origen. — "  In  former  times,  Baptism  was  obscurely  repre- 
sented in  the  cloud  and  in  the  sea,  but  now  regeneration  is 
in  kind,  in  water  and  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  Then,  obscurely, 
manna  was  the  food;  but  now,  in  kind,  the  flesh  of  the  Word 
of  God  is  the  true  Jood;  even,  as  he  said,  *  My  flesh  is  meat 
indeed,  and  my  blood  is  drink  indeed.'  " — Horn.  7,  in  Num. 

St.  Ambrose. — "If  Heretics  deny  that  adoration  should  be 
paid  to  the  mysteries  of  the  Incarnation  of  Jesus  Christ,  they 
may  read  in  the  Scripture,  that  the  Apostles  also  adored  him, 
after  he  had  risen  again  in  a  glorified  body."  He  then  speaks 
of  "  the  very  flesh  of  Jesus  Christ ,  which,  to  this  day,  we  adore 
in  our  sacred  mysteries."  (Quam  hodie  quoque  in  myste- 
riis  adoramus. ) 

St.  Gaudentius. — "  Believe  v!Aat  is  announced  to  thee; 
because  what  thou  receivest  is  the  body  of  that  celestial 
bread,  and  the  blood  of  that  sacred  Vine;  for  when  he  de- 
livered consecrated  bread  and  wine  to  his  disciples,  thus  he 
said,  'This  is  my  bod}*,  this  is  my  blood.'  Let  us  believe 
him,  whose  faith  ive  profess;  for  truth  cannot  lie" — Tract. 
II.  de  Pasch. 

St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa. — "It  is  by  virtue  of  the  benedic- 
tion that  the  nature  of  the  visible  species  is  changed  into 
his  body.  The  bread,  also,  is  at  first  common  bread,  but 
when  it  has  been  sanctified  it  is  called,  and  is  made  the  body 
of  Christ.  T»  r»?  ivxoyix;  Swx.(j.u  7r^o<;  ikuvo  fAirctr<TGt%U6o<rcte 
Tav  <pmvc/uevu)v  t»v  qvo-iv." — Orat.  in  Bapt.  Christi. 

Before  those  heretical  notions  which  prevailed,  respecting 
the  Trinity  and  the  Real  Presence,  had  rendered  it  necessa- 
ry, in  speaking  of  these  mysteries,  to  employ  a  word  de- 
noting actual  substance,  the  Fathers  of  the  Church  employed 
a  variety  of  terms  to  describe  the  change  which  takes  place 
in  the  Eucharist.  isWroo-rot^zicoa-i;  is,  we  see,  the  phrase  used 
in  the  passage  just  cited,  by  Gregory  of  Nyssa.  In  Theo- 
phylect  we  find  Mira-rotho-is  employed  for  the  same  purpose, 
and  the  different  words,  MstaCcah,  M<r*c-Xn/uA<rtT/uos,  MctvTtfg- 
guBjuio-i;,  Mrr'j.7MucL<r/!Ao;  have  each  been  used,  by  some  one  or 
other  of  the  Fathers,  to  express  the  miraculous  change . — 
When  the  Phantastic  heretics,  however,  had  begun  to  spi- 


(     320     ) 

ritualize  away  the  reality  of  the  Presence,  and  the  opposers 
of  the  Trinity  to  resolve  into  mere  concord  and  consent  the 
mysterious  Oneness  of  the  Father  and  Son,  it  became  neces- 
sary for  the  orthodox  to  assert  the  substantiality  in  both 
mysteries;  and  hence  the  introduction  of  those  two  words, 
equally  unauthorized  by  Scripture — Consubstantial  and 
Transubstantiatiom 

Page  91. 

In  the  Liturgy  used  by  St  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  we  find  the 

sense  both  of  himself  and  his  Church  expressed — n*£oot*Aot/- 

,(xtv  vov  <pi\*v$'fa)7rcv  Qzov  to  atytov  7rvw[/.ct  e%3L7rGsru\tttZ7rt  ret  ?rgo- 

HUfxtv*.   ivct  TrotnTi)  rev  [xiv  ctgrov  0-tofj.ct  Xgirrou  rov  efe  oivov  At/net 

X^KTTOV     7roLVTCcg     y*£     00    CIV    i^A^AtrO    TO    'ctytOV    7TVW[Jt.dL     TCVTO 

ayicta-rcti  k±i  /utGraE&hxrtu.  "  We  beseech  of  God,  the  lover 
of  souls,  to  send  down  his  Holy  Spirit  upon  these  gifts  laid 
m  open  view,  that  he  may  make  the  bread  the  body  of  Christ 
and  the  wine  the  blood  of  Christ.  For,  to  whatever  the 
Holy  Ghost  gives  a  contact,  that  thing*  is  consecrated  and 
changed.'1 

Page  95. 

*'  The  special  selection  by  the  Christians  of  those  days  for 
Festivals"  &c. 

"Onvoitpar  le  Calendrier  de  Bucherus  et  par  d'autres 
que  les  Romains  avoient  le  25  Decembre  une  fete  marquee 
Dies  Tnvicti,  en  l'honneur  du  retour  du  Soliel.  Elle  se  faisait 
avec  de  grandes  rejouissances.  Ce  fut  apparemment  pour 
s'opposer  a  la  licence  de  cette  Fete  que  l'Eglise  Romaine 
placa  en  ce  meme  jour  celle  de  lanaissance  de  Jesus  Christ 
De  meme  qu'on  institua  la  procession  du  jour  de  S.  Marc, 
pour  l'opposer  a  celle  que  faisoient  les  Paiens  ce  meme  jour 
25  Avril,  en  l'honneur  du  Dieu  Rubigo,  et  les  luminaires  de 
la  fete  de  la  Purification  tout  de  meme-" — Longuerue. 

On  comparing  my  friend's  account  of  the  numerous  in- 
stances in  which  the  early  Christians  borrowed  from  Pagan- 
ism, with  the  famous  Letter  of  Middleton,  in  which  the  same 
task  is,  with  a  very  different  object,  undertaken,  the  reader 
will  perceive  how  meagre  and  limited  were  Middle-ton's  in- 
quiries on  the  subject. 

Page  105. 
The  following  is  the  grave  and  matter  of  fact  language  in 
which  Luther  described  his  theological  controversy  with  the 
Devil: — "Contigit  me  semel  sub  mediam  noctem  subito  ex- 
pergefieri.  Ibi  Satan  mecum  caspit  ejusmodi  disputationem 
Aude  inquit,  Luthere,  doctor  perdocte,  Nocte  etiam  te  quin- 


(     321     ) 

decim  annis  celebrasse  massas  privates  pene  quotidie  ?  Quod 
si  tales  massx  private  horrendaesset  idololatria?  Cui  respond  i, 
sum  unctus  sacerdos  .  *  .  haec  omnia  feci  ex  mandato  et 
obedientia  majorum:  haec  nosti.  Hoc  inquit,  totum  est  ve- 
rum;  sed  Turcee  et  Gentilis  etiam  faciunt  omnia  in  suis  tem- 
plis  ex  obedientia.  In  his  angustiis,  in  hoc  agone  contra 
Diabolum  volebum  retundere  hostem  armis  quibus  assuetuc 
sum  sub  papatu,  &c.  Yemm  Satan  e  contra  fortius  et  ve- 
liementius  instans,  age,  inquit,  prome  ubi  scriptum  est  quod 
homo  impius  possit  consecrare,  &c,  &c.  Hxc  fere  erat  dis- 
putationis  summa." — Deund.  et.  Mis.  Privat. 

Chilling-worth  supposes  that  the  intention  of  Satan  in  ar- 
guing- against  the  Mass  was  to  induce  his  antagonist  to  perse- 
vere in  saying  it.     (Relig.  of  ProL  ) 

Page  110. 
"My  fitsh  which  I  will  give  for  the  Life  of  the  worid" 
"Nor  are  we  to  wonder  if  Christ  made  something*  else  be- 
sides Faith  and  obedience  to  -the  moral  laws  necessaiy  to 
eternal  salvation.  Man,  even  in  Paradise,  had  a  positive  Law 
given  him,  over  and  above  the  Laws  of  Nature  and  of  Reason, 
namely,  that  he  should  not  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the  Tree  of 
Good  and  Evil.  If  he  had  even  obeyed  in  this,  he  could  not 
have  attained  eternal  happiness  without  eating  of  the  Tree  of 
Life, — to  show  that  eternal  Life  and  perfect  obedience  are 
two  things  that  have  no  necessary  dependence  on  each  other. 
For  the  same  reason  he  hath  required  Christians  not  only  to 
believe  and  obey  in  other  respects,  but  in  order  to  secure 
ourselves  a  happy  resurrection,  he  directs  us  to  feed  on  the 
Bread  of  Life,  the  Holy  Eucharist.  For,  by  making  this  a 
necessary  condition,  without  which  we  cannot  attain  immor- 
tal happiness,  he  gives  us  a  demonstration  that  Eternal  Life 
is  the  gift  of  God,  and  not  the  wages  of  our  righteousness 
and  obedience.  When,  therefore  our  Saviour  says,  t  He 
that  believeth  in  me  hath  eternal  life,'  the  meaning  is,  not 
that  Faith  alone  is  sufficient  to  salvation,  but  that  a  *rue  be- 
liever, by  being  a  member  of  Christ's  Church  aTid  enjoying 
the  Eucharist,  has  the  means  of  eternal  life  provided  for  him 
by  Christ  Jesus,  as  Adam,  by  living  in  Paradise,  and  having 
the  Fruit  of  the  Tree  of  Life  within  his  reach,  might  be  said 
to  have  eternal  life;  and  it  is  very  observable  how  unanimous 
the  ancient  writers  of  the  Church  are,  not  only  in  asserting 
that  this  Sacrament  is  necessary  to  Salvation,  but  that  it  is 
the  means  by  which  our  bodies  have  a  principle  of  a  happy 
resurrection  conveyed  to  them." — Johnson. 


^     322     ) 

Page  113.  Note. 
"  But  the  Sacrament  was  an  institution  perfectly  new  and 
unheard  of  before,  when  our  Saviour  first  administered  it,  in 
the  opinion  of  those  who  deny  John  vi.  to  relate  to  this  mat- 
ter. It,  therefore,  must  be  supposed  that  our  Saviour  did 
extempore  institute  and  oblige  his  Apostles  to  receive  the  Sa- 
crament without  giving*  them  any  previous  notice  or  informa- 
tion whereby  they  might  be  prepared  for  it, — unless  it  be 
acknowledged  that  here,  in  this  context,  he  did  give  them 
this  notice;  for  we  have  not  the  least  intimation  of  his  doing 
so  in  any  other  place  of  the  Histories  of  the  Evangelists. 
And,  therefore,  to  acquit  our  Saviour  of  any  such  imputation, 
it  ought  in  reason  to  be  acknowledged  that  he  did  it  here; 
and  that  St  John,  observing  that  the  other  Evangelists  had 
omitted  this  discourse,  thought  it  necessary  to  be  inserted  in 
his  Gospel:  whereas,  the  history  of  the  Institution  being  re- 
lated by  the  other  three,  there  was  no  occasion  for  him  to 
repeat  It." — lb, 

Page  125. 

"  To  show  how  opposite  were  the  characters  of  the  Jewish  and 
the  Christian  God" 

"  The  difference  between  the  style  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testament  is  so  very  remarkable,  that  one  of  the  greatest 
sects  in  the  primitive  times  did,  upon  tins  very  ground,  found 
their  heresy  of  Two  Gods;  the  one  evil,  fierce,  and  cruel, 
whom  they  called  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament;  the  other 
good,  kind,  and  merciful,  whom  they  called  the  God  of  the 
New  Testament.  So  great  a  difference  is  there  between  the 
representations  which  are  made  of  God,  in  the  Books  of  the 
Jewish  and  Christian  religions,  as  to  give  at  least  some  co- 
lour and  pretence  for  an  Imagination  of  two  Gods." — 
Tilbtson. 

Page  136. 

In  giving  an  account  of  the  Carpocratians,  another  branch 
of  these  Gnostics,  the  author  of  L'Histoire  du  Gnosticisme, 
says;^-c*C*est  la  Gnosis,  c'est  la  science  des  Carpocratiens 
qui  donne  cette  science.  Ce  n'est  pourtant  ni  une  science 
nouvelle  ni  une  science  exclusive;  elle  a  ete  donne  a  tous 
les  peuples,  ou  plutot  les  grands  hommes  de  tous  les  peuples 
ont  pu  s'elever  jusqu'a  elle — Payens  ou  Juifs,  Pythagore, 
Platon,  Aristote,  Moise  et  Jesus  Christ  ont  possede  cette 
Gnosis,  la  Verite.  Cette  Gnosis  affranchet  deslois  du  monde 
(HcL\»§udL  e/.ivS-^too-uvjuAs) — elle  fait  plus;  elle  affranchit  de 
tout  ce  que  le  vulgaire  appelle  Religion."    In  a  note,  the 


(     323     ) 

author  adds; — "  Voila  une  ecole  meprisable  qui  proclame  il 
y  a  seize  siecles  l'Universalisme  le  plus  philosophique  et  le 
plus  religieux  que  connaisse  notre  terns." 

Page  137. 
"  The  Gnostics  forerunners  of  the  Anabaptists"  &c. 
Of  the  Carpocratians,  the  historian  of  Gnosticism  says, 
"Tout  ce  que  les  docteurs  orthodoxes  appeloient  les  bonnes 
ceuvres  ils  le  traitoient  de  choses  exterieures,  indiflferentes 
....  C'est  par  lafoi  et  sans  les  ceuvres  que  les  orthodoxes 
se  recommendaient  a  cote  d'elles."  The  similarity  between 
these  fanatics  and  the  ravers  of  the  Reformation  did  not 
escape  the  observation  of  this  writer.  "Rien,"  he  says, 
"ne  nous  parait  plus  propre  a  faire  juger  les  Carpocratiens 
de  la  Cyrena'ique  que  les  anabaptistes  de  Minister." 

Page  207. 

In  the  sermons  published  by  the  Executors  of  Dr.  Crisp, 
one  of  the  founders  of  Antinomianism  in  England,  it  is  as- 
serted, (on  the  authority  of  the  text,  "He  hath  made  him 
to  be  sin  for  us,")  that  Christ  was  actually  Sin  itself! 

Page  226. 
"  Dispositions  of  Luther  towards  the  Jews." 

Severam  deinde  sententiam  adversus  eos  promit,  censet- 
que,  synagogas  illorum  funditus  destruendas,  domos  quoque 

diruendas,  libros  precationum  et  Talmudicos  omnes 

immo  et  ipsos  sacros  codices  Veteris  Testamenti,  quia  illis 
tarn  male  utunter,  auferendos,  &c.  &c. — Seckendorf.  Comm. 
de  Lath.  lib.  3,  sect.  27. 

Such  was  the  tolerance  of  this  champion  of  Private  Judg- 
ment! Even  Seckendorf  thinks  it  right  to  affix  a  brand  of 
disapprobation  to  such  sentiments: — "Acria  hsec  sunt,  et 
quae  approbationem  non  invenerunt." 

Page  235. 

The  ministers  of  Geneva,  in  their  Declaration  in  answer  to 
D'Alembert's  Article  Geneve,  in  the  Encyclopedic,  said  that 
they  had  for  Jesus  Christ  "plus  que  due  respect" 

Page  240. 

"Negative  code  of  Christianity" 
"  The  greatest  unity  the  Protestants  have,  is  not  in  be- 
lieving, but  in  not  believing;  in  knowing  rather  what  they 
are  against  than  what  they  are  for;  not  so  much  in  knowing 


(      324     ) 

what  they  would  have,  as  in  knowing  what  they  would  not 
have.  But  let  these  negative  Religions  take  heed  they  meet 
not  with  a  negative  Salvation." — Marquis  of  Worcester3 a 
Paper  in  his  Conference  with  Charles  I.  at  Ragland, 

Page  242. 

Boxhornius,  the  grandfather  of  the  celebrated  Marcus 
Zuerius,  was  also  one  of  those  who  gave  up  the  Church  for 
a  wife,  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation.  "Lorsqull  fut 
question  (says  Baillet)  de  prendre  une  femme  a  la  place  de 
son  Breviaire,  et  de  se  rendre  hommes  de  qualite,  il  se  dit  de 
la  Maison  de  Boxhorns>  noblesse  connue  dans  le  Brabant." — 
Anti-CuycMus. 

Page  247 . 

As  the  almost  incredible  grossness  of  this  scene  at  the  Black 
Bear,  might  well  induce  some  suspicion  as  to  my  friend's  fide- 
lity in  describing  it,  I  think  it  right  to  extract  the  passage  of 
Hospinian  from  which  he  has  taken  his  account: — "Tandem 
hinc  inde  multis  inter  ipsos  permutatis  sermonibus  exacerba- 
to  utrinque  ammo  Lutherus  Carlostadium  ut  contra  se  pub- 
lice  scribat,  invitat.  Simul  ex  concitato  isto  animi  fervore  au- 
reum  nummum  extractum  ex  pera  ipsi  oflfert,  inquiens,  '  En 
accipe,  et  quantum  potes  animose  contra  me  dimica.  Age, 
verb,  vergas  in  me  alacriter.'  Quod  etsi  recusaret  prim  urn 
Carlostadius,  et  rem  cognitioni  pix  permittendam  moneret 
ac  peteret,  tandem,  cum  urgeretur,  hunc  aureum  nummum 
accepturum  se  respondit,  eumque  omnibus  astantibus  osten- 
dens,  dixit  «En,  chari  fratres,  istud  est  signum  et  arrabo, 
quod  potestatem  acceperim  contra  doctorem  Lutherum 
scribendi.  Rogo  itaque  vos,  ut  ejus  rei  testes  esse  velitis.' 
Cumque  aureum  nummum  marsupio  suo  recondidisset,  Lu- 
thero  manum  in  sponsionem  pactae  et  susceptse  contentionis 
porrexit,  pro  cujus  confirmatione  Lutherus  ipsi  vicissim  haus- 
tum  vini  propinavit,  adhortans  eum,  ne  sibi  parceret,  sed 
quanto  vehementius  et  animosius  contra  se  ageret,  tanto  il- 
ium sibi  chariorem  futurum."  Hist  Sacram.  Pars  Alter  a> 
de  prima  origine  Certaminis  Sacramentarii. 

Hospinian  adds,  "  H?ec  te,  Christiane  lector,  fuerunt  infeli- 
cissimi  istius  Certaminis,  quod  ex  pacto  et  sponsione  suscep- 
tum,  tot  jam  annis  Ecclesiam  gi-avissime  exercuit,  infausta 
auspicia." 

Page  255. 

The  following  is  a  specimen  of  the  views  of  Zanchius  on 
this  head:—"  Damus  reprobos  necessitate  peccandi  eoque  et 
pereundi  ex  hac  Dei  ordinatione  constringi,  atque  ita  con- 


(     325     ) 

string!,  ut  nequc  aut  non  peccare  et  perire." — "  We  grant 
that  reprobates  are  constrained  by  a  necessity  of  sinning,  and 
therefore,  of  perishing  through  this  ordination  of  God,  and 
that  they  are  constrained  in  such  a  manner  as  to  be  unable  to 
do  otherwise  than  sin  and  perish*" 

Page  266. 
"  A  provision  for  future  changes"  &c. 

This  was  entirely  on  the  principle  of  the  Socinians,  of 
whose  Catechism  Mosheim  says: — "It  never  obtained  among 
them  the  authority  of  a  public  Confession  or  rule  of  faith ; 
and  hence  the  Doctors  of  that  sect  were  authorized  to  cor- 
rect and  contradict  it,  or  to  substitute  another  form  of  doc- 
trine in  its  place." 

Accordingly,  in  a  subsequent  Edition  of  this  Catechism 
published  by  Crellius,  Schlichtingius,  and  the  Wissowatii, 
some  parts  were  altered,  and  others  corrected. 

Page  270. 
"Their  Liturgie,  (which  began  in  the  nonage  reign  of 
Edward  VI.  and,  after  some  years'  interruption,  got  stronger 
footing  by  an  Act  of  Parliament  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  day, 
and  so  was  become  almost  of  fourscore  years'  prescription, 
half  as  old  as  one  of  our  grandfathers)  is  decried,  antiquated 
by  the  present  Parliament,  contemned  by  the  people,  and 
succeeded  by  a  new  thing  called  a  Directory  of  four  or  five 
years'  unquiet  standing,  which  already  begins  to  lose  credit 
with  its  first  acceptors." — Dr.  Carter's  Motives,  &c,  1649. 

Page  275. 

It  would  appear  that  Antinomianism  still  flourishes,  to  a 
frightful  extent,  in  England.  Robert  Hall,  in  one  of  his 
Sermons,  says,  "While  Antinomianism  is  making  rapid 
strides  through  the  land,  and  has  already  convulsed  and  dis- 
organized so  many  of  our  churches."  A  recent  writer,  too, 
in  speaking  of  Dr.  Hawkins,  who,  like  the  founder  of  the 
English  Antinomians,  Dr.  Crisp,  belongs  to  the  Church  of 
England,  says,  "his  books  and  converts  have  infected  our 
churches  as  with  a  kind  of  pestilence,  and  are  perverting 
the  minds  of  multitudes  within  the  pale  of  the  establish* 
ment." — James  on  Dissent. 

Few  have  laid  open  more  powerfully  than  does  the  illus- 
trious Grotius  the  baleful  workings  of  the  Calvinistic  doc 
trine.     His  opponent,  Rivetus,  having  complained  that  there 
was  no  longer  the  means  of  providing  fit  and  proper  ministers 

28 


(     326     ) 

for  the  Consistories,  Grotius  remarks,  that  in  the  Churches 
of  former  times,  though  there  were  not  then  so  many  rich 
people  as  among*  the  followers  of  Rivetus,  there  was  yet  an 
abundant  supply  for  all  such  purposes; — the  doctrine  of 
imputed  justice  having"  not  yet  chilled  their  hearts  to  charity 
and  good  works: — "  Cur  ergo  ilia  necessaria  nunc  minus 
suppetunt?  Quia  non  docentur  nunc  ea  de  necessitate  ac 
dignatione  operum  liberalitatis  et  misericordise  quae  olim  do- 
cebantur.  Justitia  imputata  frigus  injecit  et  plebi  et  plebis 
ducibus." — In  Rivet.  Apohg.  Discuss.  Of  the  doctrine  of 
Perseverance,  Grotius  truly  says,  "Nullum  potuit  in  Chris- 
tianismum  induci  dogma  perniciosius  quam  hoc."  He  adds, 
"  None  of  the  ancients  taught  this  doctrine?  none  of  them 
would  have  borne  its  being  taught" — Hoc  nemo  veterum 
docuit;  nemo  docentem  tulisset. — In  Animadv.  pro  suis  ad 
Cassandrum  notis.  By  Beza  it  was  held  that  David  even  when 
polluted  with  adultery  and  homicide,  did  not  lose  the  Holy 
Spirit,  nor  the  less  continue  to  be  a  man  after  God's  own 
heart: — "  Non  desiit  tamen  tunc  temporis  esse  yir  secundum 
eor  Dei." 

Page  286. 

J'ai  voulu  indiquer  comment  les  croyances  Protestantes 
ont  dii  disparoitre  toutes,  et  laisser  la  religion  vacantes  dans 

leurs  contrees  respectives J'ai  la  conscience  intime 

d' avoir  ecrit  sans  passion  et  je  donne  comrae  resultat  certain, 
d'apres  mes  recherches  et  mes  meditations  la  disposition  to- 
tale  du  Protestantisme.  II  n'y  a  reellement,  plus  de  Luthe- 
riens  ni  de  Calvinistes.il  n'y  a  plus  de  mystiques  dans  les 
rangs  des  Reformes;  il  ne  s'y  trouve  meme  plus  de  Sociniens; 
on  n'y  reconnoit  qu'une  masse  de  sentimens  confus  com- 
poses de  raisonnemens  et  de  sensations  indefinees. 

Page  289. 

C£  Roman  Catholics  (says  Plowden)  rejoice  to  find  such 
honour  done  to  their  doctrine  of  submitting  private  to  the 
Church's  public  interpretations  of  the  Scriptures,  when  the 
Vigornian  prelate  (Hurd)  puts  St.  Augustine's  words  to  the 
Manichseans  into  the  mouth  of  his  deceased  friend  (Warbur- 
ton)  to  strike  dumb  and  confound  some  modern  free  inter- 
preters of  the  Word — '  Ye  who  believe  what  you  will  in  the 
Gospel  and  disbelieve  what  you  will,  assuredly  believe  not 
the  Gospel  itself,  but  yourselves  only.'  " 

Page  291. 
In  addition  to  the  difficulties  thrown  in  the  way  of  a  clear 
understanding  of  the  Scriptures,  by  the  incorrectness  of 


(     327     ) 

translators,  by  false  punctuation,  &c.  &c.  are  to  be  taken  into 
account  also  such  corruptions  of  the  meaning  of  the  text  as 
may  have  arisen  from  design.  Thus,  in  an  edition  printed  in 
166,  the  verse  in  Acts  vi.  3,  referring  to  the  choosing  of 
Deacons,  stands  thus,  "Wherefore  brethren,  look  ye  out 
among  you  seven  men  of  honest  report,  full  of  the  Hdiy 
Ghost  and  wisdom,  whom  ye  may  appoint  over  this  business," 
instead  of  "we  may  appoint," — an  alteration,  intended  it  is 
supposed,  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  the  people's  power, 
not  only  in  electing  but  also  ordaining  their  ministers.  A 
misrepresentation  of  the  meaning  of  Scripture  for  a  like 
covert  purpose,  occurs  in  the  quarto  Bible  printed  in  Queen 
Anne's  time,  1708,  where  the  heading  or  contents  prefixed 
to  the  149th  Psalm  run  thus:  "The  Prophet  exhorteth  to 
praise  God  for  his  love  to  the  Church  and  for  that  power 
which  he  hath  given  to  the  Church  to  rule  the  consciences  of 
men"  This  innovation  on  the  edition  of  1614,  (where  the 
heading  is,  "  An  exhortation  to  the  Church  to  praise  the 
Lord  for  his  victory  and  conquest  that  he  giveth  his  saints 
against  all  man's  power")  was  supposed  to  have  been  intro- 
duced by  the  partisans  of  the  Stuarts,  for  the  purpose  of 
sanctioning  their  arbitrary  principles. 

Page  292, 

By  no  writer  have  the  difficulties  of  expounding  Scripture 
been  set  forth,  with  more  alarming  force,  than  by  the  great 
Jeremy  Taylor  himself,  in  the  following  passage  of  his  Liberty 
©f  Prophesying: — "Since  there  are  so  many  copies  (of 
Scripture)  with  infinite  variations  of  reading 5  since  a  various 
interpunction,  a  parenthesis,  a  letter,  an  accent,  may  much 
alter  the  sense;  since  some  places  have  divers  literal  senses, 
may  have  spiritual,  mystical  and  allegorical  meanings;  since 
there  are  so  many  tropes,  metonymies,  ironies,  hyperboles, 
proprieties  and  improprieties  of  language,  whose  understand- 
ing depends  upon  such  circumstances  that  it  is  almost  im- 
possible to  know  the  proper  interpretation  ....  since  there 
are  some  mysteries  which,  at  the  best  advantage  of  expres- 
sion, are  not  easy  to  be  apprehended,  and  whose  explication, 
by  reason  of  our  imperfection,  must  needs  be  dark  and  some- 
times unintelligible;  and,  lastly,  since  these  ordinary  means 
of  expounding  Scripture,  as  searching  the  originals,  con- 
ference of  places,  parity  of  reason,  analogy  of  faith,  are  all 
dubious,  uncertain  and  very  fallible,  he  that  is  the  wisest  and 
by  consequence  the  likeliest  to  expound  truest  in  all  proba- 
bility of  reason  will  be  very  far  from  confidence,  because 
every  one  of  these,  and  many  more,  arc  like  so  many  de- 


(     328     ) 

gTces  of  improbability  and  incertainty,  all  depressing1  our 
certainty  of  finding1  out  truth  in  such  mysteries  and  amidst  so 
many  difficulties." — Liberty  of  Prophesying  sect*  4. 

Yet  this  is  the  Book,  so  awfully  beset  with  difficulties, 
which  those  ineffable  blockheads  of  the  Second  Reforma- 
tion, in  Ireland,  the  *  *  s,  *  *  s,  &c,  would  throw  open, 
by  wholesale,  to  the  indiscriminate  perusal  of  the  multitude! 

"St.  August.  Lib.  de  Haeres.  numbereth  ninety  several 
heresies  (so  many  Reformations  were  they)  sprung  up  be- 
tween Christ's  time  and  his — i.  e.  in  about  four  centuries.  So 
many  more  rose  between  St.  Augustine's  days  and  Luther's — 
i.  e.  one  hundred  and  eighty  heresies  in  fifteen  hundred  years. 
Betwixt  Luther's  apostacy  from  St.  Austin's  rule  and  defec- 
tion from  the  Catholic  Church  in  1517  and  the  year  1595 
(which  is  but  an  interval  of  seventy-eight  years)  modern 
authors,  Staphilus,  Hosius,  Prateolus  and  others  do  reckon 
two  hundred  and  seventy  new  sects,  all  Reformations  of  what 
was  some  days  or  some  hours  before." — Dr.  Carie?%,s  Mo- 
tives, &c. 

Page  293. 

The  Protestant  Episcopius  was  at  least  consistent  when, 
from  his  persuasion  of  the  fallibility  of  all  modern  translations, 
he  insisted  that  all  sorts  of  persons,  labourers,  sailors,  wo- 
men, &c,  ought  to  learn  Hebrew  and  Greek. 

"  Obscurity  in  the  meaning  of  Scripture. " 
In  speaking  of  what  are  called  plain  texts,  which,  as  he 
alleges,  all  parties  claim  on  their  side,  and  much  wonder 
that  their  adversaries  can  mistake  their  meaning,  an  acute 
sceptical  writer  says,  "The  plain  texts,  from  St.  Austin's 
days,  at  least  in  the  West,  were  all  in  favour  of  Predestina- 
tion, and  upon  those  plain  texts  the  Articles  of  our  Church 
and  all  other  Protestant  Churches  were  founded.  It  is  true  in 
Queen  Elizabeth's  time  there  were  some  few  among  the  in- 
ferior Clergy  for  Free-Will;  but  then  those  '  incorrigible 
Free-will  men,'  as  they  were  called,  were,  by  direction  of 

the  Bishop,  sent  to  prison But  since  the  Court  in 

Charles  the  First's  time  helped  to  open  the  eyes  of  our 
divines,  they,  no  longer  blinded  by  their  Articles,  clearly  see 
that  all  those  plain  texts  are  all  for  Free-Will." 


THE  END. 


